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CHARLOTTE    BRONTE 

A    CENTENARY   MEMORIAL 


CHARLOTTE  BRONTE. 


Frontispiece, 


^^^^ 


CHARLOTTE  BRONTE 

1816-1916 

A     CENTENARY     MEMORIAL 

PREPARED  BY  THE  BRONTE  SOCIETY 
EDITED     BY     BUTLER    WOOD,    F.R.S.L. 

WITH    A    FOREWORD     BY    MRS.    HUMPHRY    WARD 
AND    3    MAPS   AND    28    ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW    YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON    AND    COMPANY 

681  FIFTH   AVENUE 
1918 


(All  riiin  riitrHMd) 

(PKINTKD  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN) 


FOREWORD 


As  President  of  the  Bronte  Society,  I  have  been 
asked — for  my  Jast  appearance  in  that  honourable 
place  ! — to  write  a  few  words  of  Preface  to  this 
*'  Centenary  Memorial  "  of  Charlotte  Bronte.  In 
my  own  paper,  which  was  read  at  Bradford  this 
spring,  and  is  printed  in  these  pages,  I  have  said 
all  that  the  reader  of  this  book  will  want  to  hear 
from  myself  on  its  ever-enthralling  subject.  But 
there  remains  for  me  the  pleasant  task  of  pointing 
such  a  reader  to  the  variety  of  Bronte  knowledge 
and  criticism  which  the  other  essays  in  this  volume 
contain.  They  are  no  drilled  chorus,  but  the 
fresh  impressions  and  the  first-hand  research  of 
competent  writers  who  have  spoken  their  minds 
both  with  love  and  courage.  Very  different  judg- 
ments will  be  found  in  them  on  very  important 
points,  such  as  the  relative  rank  of  the  two 
great  sisters,  or  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  three  novels, 
inter  se^  or  of  her  relation  to  her  contemporaries. 
This    seems    to    me   all    to   the   good.     It    is   by 


Foreword 

difference  that  we  all  think ;  and  "  fret  our  minds 
to  an  intenser  play." 

But  what  is  unanimous,  is  not  so  much  the 
warm  praise  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  in  which  this 
band  of  writers,  from  their  various  points  of 
view,  ultimately  agree,  as  the  testimony  they  bear 
to  the  feeling  she  still  stirs  in  us — to  the  delight 
she  still  gives  to  this  later  generation,  after  more 
than  half  a  century.  The  security  of  her  fame, 
we  see,  is  yearly  greater,  as  her  star  rises  surely 
and  steadily  to  its  place  in  the  nineteenth-century 
heaven.  Fluctuations  of  opinion  there  have  been, 
and  must  always  be,  in  the  case  of  those  who,  like 
the  Brontes,  challenge  opinion,  and,  so  to  speak, 
"take  it  by  force."  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
fluctuations  are  over,  and  the  verdict  given.  And 
the  members  of  the  Bronte  Society,  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  have  certainly  helped  to  make  it 
what  it  is.  Their  unworthy  President  bids  them 
now  a  grateful  farewell. 

MARY    A.    WARD. 
September,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

r 


PACK 


Foreword.     By  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward       .  .       5 

Introduction        .  .  .  .  .11 

Some   Thoughts    on    Charlotte    Bronte.     By 

Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  .  .  .  •      *  3 

A  Word   on   Charlotte  Bronte.     By  Edmund 

Gossey  C.B.      .  .  .  .  '39 

Charlotte  Bronte  as  a  Romantic.     By  G.  K. 

Chesterton         .  .  .  .  '47 

Charlotte  Bronte  :   A  Personal  Sketch.     By 

Arthur  C.  Benson        .  .  .  '55 

Centenary    Address    at    Haworth.      By    the 

Right  Rev.   Bishop  Welldon     .  .  '63 

Charlotte    Bronte    in    Brussels.     By  M.    H. 

Spielmann  .  .  .  .  .81 

Story  of  the  Bronte  Society.  By  H  E.  Wroot  1 1 1 

The  Place  of  Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nine- 
teenth Century  Fiction.  By  the  late  Dr. 
Richard  Garnett  .  .  .  '149 

7 


Contents 

Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  A  Comparison 
AND  A  Contrast.  By  Professor  C.  E. 
Faughan,  M.A,  .  .  .  •   ^73 

Charlotte  Bronte  in  London.     5v  5/V   5/Wn^v 

Lee^  LL.D.      .....  207 

The     Spirit     of     the     Moors.      By    Halliwell 

Sutcliffe  .....  249 

The  Brontes  as   Artists    and   Prophets.     By 

y.  K.  Snoivden  ....  285 

A  Bronte  Itinerary.     By  Butler  Wood  .  •  3^1 

Index        ......  327 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

r 

Portrait  of  Charlotte  Bronte  .    Frontispiece 

Facing  Page 

Haworth  Parsonage       .             .  .  .16 

Portrait  of  Mrs.  Gaskell       .  .  '38 

Haworth  Church                        .  .  .62 

Portrait  of  Rev.  A.  B,  Nicholls  .  .     72 
Facsimile  of  Circular  issued  by  the  Bronte 

Sisters  in   1844         •             •  •  .no 

"Black  Bull"  Inn,  Haworth  .  .  .128 

Dog  "Floss"       .  .  ,  .  132 

(From  JVater-Cokur  Drawing  iy  C.  Bronte) 

Hathersage  .....   140 

Bronte  Birthplace,  Thornton  .             .160 

Bronte  Waterfall,  Haworth  Moor  .             .   168 

Quarries  on  Haworth  Moor    .  ,       page  172 

The  Rydings,  Birstall              .  Facing  p.  176 

Oakwell  Hall,  Birstall           .  .             .176 

Moorseats,  Hathersage              .  .             .   192 

9 


Illustrations 

Facing  Page 

Portrait  of  Mr.  George  Smith  .  .  208 

PoNDEN  House  (Thrushcross  Grange)  .  .  224 

On  Ha  worth  Moor        ....  248 

Dog  "Keeper"    .....  256 
{From  Water-Colour  Drawing  by  E.   Brente) 

Village  of  Stanbury     ....  272 

The  Withins  (Wuthering  Heights)    .  .  272 

Portrait  of  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte  .  280 

Portrait  of  Miss  Ellen  Nussey  .  .  280 

Haworth  from  the  Moor  Edge  .  .288 

Haworth  Church  ....  288 

View  from  Haworth  Moor       .  .  .  304 

Foot-bridge  near  Bronte  Waterfall  .  304 

Haworth  from  the  P2ast  .  .  •  3H 

MAPS 

The  Haworth  Country  .  .  .316 

The  "Shirley"  Country  .  .  318 

KiRKBY  Lonsdale  and  Cowan  Bridge  .  320 


10 


INTRODUCTION 


When  the  Bronte  Society  discussed  the  question  of 
celebrating  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  birthday  it  was  felt  that  the  occasion 
should  b^  marked  by  something  of  a  more 
permanent  nature  than  the  public  function  which 
had  been  arranged  to  be  held  at  Haworth,  and 
it  was  therefore  decided  to  prepare  for  publication 
a  volume  which  should  serve  as  a  literary  souvenir 
of  the  Centenary  year.  Steps  were  thereupon 
immediately  taken  to  this  end,  and  thanks  to  the 
willing  co-operation  of  some  writers  of  eminence 
who  have  notable  sympathy  with  the  objects  of 
the  Society,  it  has  been  made  possible  to  bring  the 
present  work  before  the  public. 

In  addition  to  contributions  written  specially 
for  the  occasion,  a  selection  has  been  made  from 
the  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  those  articles 
which  appear  to  be  appropriate  to  the  purpose  of 
the  volume.  They  include  appreciations  by  the 
late  Dr.    Richard  Garnett,  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  Prof. 

II 


Introduction 

C.  E.  Vaughan,  Halliwell  Sutcliffe,  and  J.  Keighley 
Snowden,  and  are  included  because  it  is  felt 
that  they  are  well  worthy  of  a  more  extended 
publicity  than  it  was  possible  to  give  them  in  the 
limited  issue  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Society. 

Amongst  the  illustrations  will  be  found  a  fac- 
simile of  the  circular  issued  by  the  Bronte  sisters 
when  contemplating  the  formation  of  a  Boarding 
School  at  the  Haworth  Parsonage  in  1844.  It 
is  reproduced  from  the  only  known  leaflet  now 
existing,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Haworth 
Museum. 

The  Council  of  the  Society  desire  to  record 
their  gratitude  to  Mr.  A.  C.  Benson,  Master  of 
Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  Mr.  M.  H. 
Spielmann,  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  Mr.  G.  K. 
Chesterton,  Bishop  Welldon,  Sir  Sidney  Lee, 
Mr.  J.  Keighley  Snowden,  Mr.  Halliwell  Sut- 
cliffe, Prof  C.  E.  Vaughan,  and  Mr.  H.  E. 
Wroot,  for  the  help  they  have  generously  ren- 
dered ;  to  the  Editor  of  The  Times  for  permission 
given  to  reprint  Mr.  Spielmann's  article  on 
"  Charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels  ;  "  to  Mr.  M.  E. 
Hartley,  of  Bradford,  for  preparing  the  subject 
index ;  to  Mr.  Harry  H.  Wood,  for  preparing 
the  maps,  and  to  the  President  of  the  Society, 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  for  writing  a  foreword 
to  the  volume  and  for  permission  to  include 
her  Centenary  Address. 


12 


SOME    THOUGHTS 
ON    CHARLOTTE    BRONTE 

Bv    Mrs.    HUMPHRY    WARD 

r 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ON    CHARLOTTE 
BRONTE 

An  Address  delivered  bv    Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  to    the 
Bronte  Society,  at  Bradford,  Friday,  March  30,  19 17. 

A  HUNDRED  years  ago  last  April,  a  third  daughter 
— Charlotte — was  born  to  the  Rev.  Patrick 
Bronte  and  Maria  Bronte,  his  wife,  at  the 
Yorkshire  village  of  Thornton,  in  the  parish  of 
Bradford.  The  little  Charlotte's  elder  sisters 
Maria  and  Elizabeth  were  still  babies  them- 
selves when  she  appeared,  and  when  not  quite 
four  years  later  the  whole  family  migrated  to 
Haworth,  near  Keighley,  and  took  up  their 
residence  in  the  small  parsonage  house,  on  the 
edge  of  a  Yorkshire  moor,  which  is  now  so 
famous  in  the  history  of  literature,  there  were 
six  children,  of  whom  the  eldest  was  not  much 
more  than  six  years  old.  Their  gentle,  refined 
mother,  worn-out  perhaps  by  child-bearing,  died 
the  year  after  the  move,  and  the  six  wonderful 
children  were  left  motherless. 

Was   there   ever   such   a   brood !      Think    of 

15 


Charlotte  BrontS :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

them  in  that  first  year  at  Haworth !  Their 
mother,  whom  they  rarely  saw,  was  dying; 
their  father  was  not  fond  of  children,  and 
lived  shut  up  in  his  study.  Maria,  aged  seven, 
was  the  mother  and  teacher  of  the  rest.  She 
would  shut  herself  up  with  a  newspaper,  in  the 
little  fireless  room  upstairs  which  was  called  the 
"children's  study" — there  was  no  nursery  in 
that  melancholy  house  ! — and  would  be  able  to 
tell  the  others  all  kinds  of  things  when  she 
came  out,  about  politics  and  Parliament,  about 
"  the  Duke,"  Charlotte's  particular  hero,  and 
Bonaparte,  the  Duke's  vanquished  foe,  now  safely 
caged  in  St.  Helena. 

When  the  children  went  for  a  walk,  they  went 
out  all  six  together,  on  the  moor  behind  the 
house,  alone,  hand  in  hand,  the  elder  ones  help- 
ing the  babies.  They  never  made  a  noise  ;  their 
happiest  hours  were  spent  whispering  to  each 
other  in  the  firelight  on  winter  evenings  ;  some- 
how they  all  learnt  to  read — how,  it  is  not 
recorded  ;  and  books,  the  moors,  and  each  other 
sufficed  them.  They  had  no  child  friends, 
no  children's  books,  no  pretty  frocks,  no 
children's  parties.  Presently,  their  father,  who 
never  walked  with  them,  or  had  a  meal  with 
them,  began  to  realize  they  were  not  like  other 
children  ;  and  we  have  the  well-known  story  of 
his  examination  of  them,  when  the  eldest  was 
ten    and    the    youngest    four.      He    made    each 

i6 


Some   Thoughts  on  Charlotte  Bronte 

child  wear  a  mask  in  turn  and  speak  through 
the  mask,  so  as  to  give  it  courage.  Anne,  the 
baby,  was  asked  what  a  child  like  her  most 
wanted.  She  answered,  Mr.  Bronte  says — is  it 
quite  credible  ? — "  Age  and  experience."  While 
the  eldest,  Maria,  aged  ten,  when  asked  what  was 
the  best  mode  of  spending  time,  replied  : — "  By 
laying  it  out  in  preparation  for  a  happy  eternity." 
A  year  later,  the  child  who  gave  that  answer  was 
dead,  after  that  appalling  year  at  the  Cowan 
Bridge  School,  of  which  Mrs.  Gaskell  gives  an 
account  which  has  never  been  substantially  shaken. 
Her  father  left  it  on  record  that,  long  before 
she  died,  he  could  talk  to  her  about  any  leading 
topic  of  the  day,  as  though  she  were  a  grown 
person. 

But  still,  she  died,  poor  little  motherless 
mother  ! — and  her  younger  sister,  Elizabeth,  also 
died.  Mercifully  Charlotte  and  Emily  were 
rescued  from  Cowan  Bridge  in  time,  and  then 
for  nearly  live  years  the  marvellous  children 
were  happy  together  in  their  own  way.  The 
sisters  loved  each  other  passionately  ;  they  were 
proud  of  their  only  brother,  who  was  taught 
by  his  father  and  kept  at  home  ;  they  were  not 
much  interfered  with  by  their  aunt,  who  had 
come  to  keep  the  house  ;  they  read  the  Bible, 
Shakespeare,  Bunyan,  Addison,  Johnson,  Sheridan, 
Cowper,  for  the  past  ;  Scott,  Byron,  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,    Southey,    for    the    moderns,   with 

17  » 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Blackwood' i  Magazine  and  a  full  supply  of 
newspapers,  both  Whig  and  Tory.  They  were 
all  politicians  and  desperate  Tories ;  and  the 
record  of  what  they  wrote — the  plays  and  poems 
and  miscellaneous  tales  and  articles,  in  the  "  little 
writing,"  now  so  eagerly  sought  for  by  the 
autograph  collector,  which  most  of  us  can  only 
read  with  a  magnifying  glass — before  Charlotte,  the 
eldest,  was  fourteen,  is  more  amazing  even  than 
the  stories  of  wonder-children  in  Evelyn's  Diary^ 
or  John  Stuart  Mill's  recollections  of  his  own 
performances  under  the  age  of  five.  The  mere 
list  of  Charlotte's  childish  works,  in  twenty-two 
MS.  volumes,  occupies  a  page  and  a  half  of 
Mrs.  Gaskell's  biography. 

Yet  when  Charlotte  went  to  Roehead  School, 
at  fourteen,  she  seemed  at  first  so  ignorant — it 
was  grammar  and  geography  she  was  tested  in — 
that  a  kind  schoolmistress  told  her  pityingly  she 
must  be  placed  with  the  little  ones.  Charlotte, 
however,  cried  so  much  that  a  chance  was  given 
her  among  the  bigger  girls.  And  then — stupe- 
faction ! — the  child  who  knew  no  grammar  was 
found  to  be  steeped  in   literature  and  history. 

'*  She  looked  a  little  old  woman  " — said  the 
schoolfellow,  Mary  Taylor,  writing  to  Mrs. 
Gaskell  ; — "  so  short-sighted  that  she  always 
appeared  to  be  seeking  something,  and  moving 
her  head  from  side  to  side  to  catch  a  sight  of 
it.     She  was   very  shy  and  nervous,  and   spoke 

i8 


Some   'i ho  lights  on   Charlotte  Brontt' 

with  a  strong  Irish  accent.  We  thought  her 
very  ignorant  !  But  then  she  would  confound  us 
by  knowing  things  that  were  out  of  our  range 
altogether  !  "  She  told  stories  out  of  a  "magazine" 
written  by  herself  and  her  sisters.  Once  her 
schoolfellows  made  her  try  to  play  some  ball 
game  with  them.  She  tried,  but  she  could  not 
see  the  ball,  so  they  "  put  her  out."  It  was 
pleasanter,  she  said,  to  stand  under  the  trees 
in  the  playground  and  watch  the  shadows  and 
the  sky.  Sometimes  she  would  talk  politics 
eagerly  ;  and  her  Radical  schoolfellows,  reflecting 
the  opinions  of  Radical  homes,  found  it  was  of 
no  use  to  argue  with  Charlotte  about  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  (the  Reform  Bill  of  '32  was  just 
passing) — for  she  knew  everything  about  him, 
and  "  we  knew  nothing."  Her  talent  for  story- 
telling was  endless.  She  and  her  sisters  called 
it  "making  out."  The  whole  family  used  to 
"  '  make  out '  histories,"  says  Mary  Taylor  again, 
"  and  invent  characters  and  events.  She  picked 
up  every  scrap  of  information  concerning  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  poetry,  music,  etc.,  as  if  it  were 
gold.  She  never  lost  a  moment  of  time  !  She 
knew  she  must  provide  for  herself." 

Yet,  except  for  the  year  at  Cowan  Bridge, 
Charlotte's  childhood  was  not  unhappy. 

The  power  which  overshadowed  it,  as  also 
that  of  her  sisters,  brought  its  own  rewards.  They 
were  themselves  well  aware  of  its  nature.     Emily 

19 


charlotte  Bronte:    a   Centenary  Memorial 

in  particular  has  paid  it  immortal  homage. 
Again  and  again  in  those  strange  poems,  written 
in  the  simplest  and  commonest  of  metres, 
scarcely  one  of  which  is  without  its  touch  of 
genius,  while  half  a  dozen  belong  to  the  main 
poetic  treasure  of  our  race,  Emily  points  to  the 
force  which  made  the  bare,  spartan  life  of  the 
bleak  parsonage  house  a  life  of  happiness,  often 
of  joyous  excitement,  to  the  three  sisters,  so 
long  as  they  had  each  other  to  cling  to,  and 
before  Bran  well's  decadence  began. 

"  Silent  is  the  house  ;  all  are  laid  asleep  : 
One  alone  looks  out  o'er  the  snow-wreaths  deep, 
Watching  every  cloud,  dreading  every  breeze 
That  whirls  the  wildering  drift,  and  bends 
.  .   .  the  groaning  trees. 
Burn  then  little  lamp  ;  glimmer  straight  and  clear. — 
Hush  !  a  rustling  wing  stirs,  methinks,  the  air; 
He  for  whom  I  wait  thus  ever  comes  to  me  ; 
Strange  Power  !    I    trust  thy    might ;    trust    thou    my  con- 
stancy." 

What  was  the  "  Strange  Power  "  that  Emily 
thus  invokes  }  Simply  Imagination — Poetry, 
"  making  out."  Emily  was  possessed  by  it  ; 
so  in  a  more  normal  degree  was  Charlotte, 
and  even  the  gentle  and  timid  Anne. 

In  Emily,  it  was  mingled  first  with  a  pas- 
sionate love  of  home  and  country,  and  then 
with  ideas  of  violence  and  terror,  partly  sug- 
gested to  her  by  books — the  German  Romantics 

30 


Some   Thoughts  on   Charlotte   Bronte 

whom  she  read  at  Brussels,  or  in  translations 
printed  in  Blackwood's  Magazine,  which  came 
regularly  to  the  parsonage — and  partly  by  her 
own  wild  moors,  and  what  she  guessed  of  the 
life  around  her,  divining  it  from  a  face  here, 
and  a  fragment  of  talk  there,  seeing  it  all  under 
a  light  of  storm,  lit  from  the  fire  of  her  own 
nature.  It  is  probable,  I  think,  that  the  quick- 
ened pulse  of  phthisis,  of  which  she  died,  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  the  peculiar 
intensity,  the  self-devouring  strength,  of  Emily's 
genius.  I  have  myself  watched  the  effect  of 
the  continuous  fever  of  phthisis  on  a  literary 
gift,  in  the  case  of  a  great  historian  ;  there  is 
no  doubt  that  it  lent  an  added  fire  and  energy 
to  his  work  ;  and  I  have  often  thought  that  the 
same  cause  partly  conditioned  Emily  Bronte's 
poetic  gift,  and  partly  explains  the  astonishing 
glow  and  concentration  of  IVuthering  Heights. 

But  it  was  only  an  intensifying  cause.  With 
Charlotte,  imagination  was  a  cradle  gift  no  less 
than  with  Emily  ;  and  Anne,  in  frailer,  feebler 
measure,  was  played  on  by  the  same  power. 

"  The  faculty  of  imagination, "  writes  Char- 
lotte to  Mr.  Williams,  "  lifted  me  when  I  was 
sinking,  three  months  ago  "  (that  is,  after  the  death 
of  her  sister  Anne)  ;  *'  its  active  exercise  has  kept 
my  head  above  water  since  !  " 

And  it  was  imagination  of  a  strong  racial 
type.     Charlotte    at   school,    says    Mary   Taylor, 

21 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

spoke  with  a  strong  Irish  accent.  It  should 
never  indeed  be  forgotten  that  the  Brontes  were 
Irish  on  their  father's  side,  and  Cornish  on 
their  mother's.  That  is  to  say,  they  were 
Celtic  by  race,  and  they  inherited  the  Celtic 
gifts. 

**  Never  laugh  at  us  Celts  !  "  said  Ernest  Renan, 
himself  a  Breton  ; — "we  shall  not  build  the  Par- 
thenon— marble  is  not  our  affair.  But  we  know 
how  to  seize  upon  the  heart  and  soul  ;  we  have 
a  power  of  piercing  which  belongs  only  to  us. 
We  plunge  our  hands  into  the  entrails  of  man 
and  bring  them  out,  like  the  witches  in  Macbeth^ 
full  of  the  secrets  of  the  infinite.  We  have  no 
turn  for  practical  life,  for  chaffering  and  bar- 
gaining. We  are  difficult  to  move.  We  die 
if  you  tear  us  from  home.  In  the  heart  of  our 
race  there  is  a  perpetual  spring  of  madness. 
Fairy-land  is  our  domain,  the  fairy-land  that 
only  pure  lips  and  faithful  hearts  can  enter  !  " 

How  many  of  these  famous  phrases  suit  the 
Brontes  !  "  We  shall  not  build  the  Parthenon  !  " 
No  one  need  look  for  classical  perfection  in  the 
Brontes.  There  is  a  morbid  and  feverish  in- 
equality in  much  of  Charlotte's  work,  which  drew 
down  upon  her  the  critics  of  her  own  day,  and 
made  Edward  Fitzgerald  call  her  "  the  Mistress 
of  the  Disagreeable."  The  structure,  the  build- 
ing, both  of  Shirley  and  Villette  break  every 
rule  ;    and    Charlotte,    when    invited    by  George 

22 


Some    Thoughts  ofi   Charlotte  Bronte 

Henry  Lewes  to  consider  the  mild  wisdom 
and  artistic  perfection  of  Jane  Austen,  turned 
almost  angrily  away.  Charlotte  and  Emily 
are  Romantics  through  and  through,  and  the 
Celts  in  history  and  literature  are  the  eternal 
Romantics.  For  they  are  not  thinking — striv- 
ing towards — an  artistic  whole,  in  which  feel- 
ing, poetry,  passion,  shall  be  all  brought  into 
bondage  to  a  shaping  and  fastidious  instinct, 
which  is,  in  truth,  the  ultimate  thing.  They 
are  grasping  at  poetry  and  passion  for  their  own 
salces,  careless  what  happens,  so  long  as  they 
can  exercise  the  piercing  and  arresting  power 
they  are  conscious  of  possessing. 

Again  :  "  In  the  heart  of  our  race  there  rises," 
says  Renan,  '*  a  spring  of  madness."  And  there 
is  a  note  of  madness  in  the  Bronte  genius ;  con- 
spicuously in  Emily,  but  to  be  heard  now  and 
then  even  in  Charlotte.  The  wonderful  chapter  in 
Villette  describing  Lucy  Snowe,  lonely,  miserable, 
and  delirious,  when  she  is  left  forsaken  in  the 
pensionnat  through  the  summer  holidays,  has  in 
it  something  non-sane  ;  one  hears  through  it 
the  footfall  of  one  who  has  known  the  border- 
lands of  the  mind,  where  dream  and  melancholy 
rule,  where,  for  the  time,  responsibility  and 
reflection  die.  The  genius  of  the  poet  and 
rhapsodist — and  it  is  essentially  to  that  category 
that  the  Bronte  genius  belongs — has  always  been 
held,    as    we    know,    to    involve    an    element    of 

2^ 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

wildness,  of  something  which  marks  it  from  the 
ordinary  gifts  of  men — 

Faster,  faster, 

Oh  Circe,  goddess, 

Let  the  wild  thronging  train. 

The  bright  procession  of  eddying  forms, 

Sweep  through  my  soul  ! 

It  was  in  a  mood — a  state — not  far  distant  from 
this  that  Charlotte  Bronte  wrote  the  astonishing 
pages  at  the  end  of  Villette^  where  Lucy  Snowe 
wanders  through  the  midnight  Brussels  en  fete^ 
unknown,  unrecognized — save  for  that  one  sharp 
glance  from  the  eyes  of  Dr.  John — herself  played 
on  by  all  the  various  impressions  of  night,  crowd, 
colour,  fire,  and  by  the  different  passions  and 
interests  of  the  persons  she  sees  ;  passing  through 
them  like  the  very  spirit  of  romance,  and  render- 
ing scenes  and  characters  in  a  marvellous  language 
— rich,  flowing,  now  wildly  and  satirically  gay, 
now  grave  and  quiet  like  the  old  Flemish  streets 
into  which  she  turns  from  the  noise  and  illumina- 
tion of  the  park — just  as  Schumann  or  Brahms 
would  have  rendered  them  in  music. 

It  is  indeed  this  quality  of  poetry,  sometimes 
piercingly  plaintive  and  touching,  at  others  grim 
and  fiery,  with  interludes  of  extravagance  or  gro- 
tesque, that  establishes  the  claim  of  Charlotte  and 
Emily  Bronte  to  their  high  place  in  literature. 
Their   claim,    of  course,  is  the   Romantic    claim 

24 


Some    Thoughts  on   Charlotte  Bronte 

— the  claim  of  George  Sand  and  Victor  Hugo, 
the  claim  of  Coleridge,  and  in  the  main  the  claim 
of  Byron.  But  it  was  specially  conditioned  in 
their  case  first  by  the  Irish — the  Celtic — strain  of 
blood  ;  and  secondly  by  a  power  of  observation, 
shrewd  or  ironic,  which  is  just  as  characteristic 
of  the  Celt  as  the  power  of  poetry,  the  touch 
of  madness,  the  melancholy,  the  note  of  fairy- 
land— which  Renan  claims  for  his  race.  Look, 
for  instance,  at  the  work  of  J.  M.  Synge,  or  at  some 
of  the  verse  of  the  most  modern  Irish  poets. 
You  will  find  in  it  exactly  the  mingling  of  these 
two  elements  ;  poetry — that  is,  the  sense  of 
mystery  and  beauty  in  the  world  ;  together  with 
an  eager  interest  in  the  human  reality,  often  in 
its  most  sordid  and  trivial  aspects,  which  is 
subordinate,  indeed,  to  the  poetic  power,  but 
never  fails  in  the  end  to  bring  that  power  to 
the  test  of  truth,  even  to  find  a  puckish  delight 
in  doing  so.  Charlotte,  for  instance,  is  eloquent 
in  praise  of  "  observation " — she  abhors  senti- 
mentalism.  Nevertheless,  when  you  present  her 
with  a  realist  like  Jane  Austen,  she  recoils.  And 
she  would  certainly  have  recoiled  still  further 
from  the  realists  of  to-day.  She  would  have 
found  nothing,  I  believe,  to  please  her  in  Clay- 
hanger  or  Kips.  The  detail  in  her  novels,  good 
or  bad,  is  always  subordinate  to  the  "  strange 
power "  whom  Emilv  invoked,  to  whom  Char- 
lotte turned  when  she  was  "  sinking  "  under  grief. 

25 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

The  school  detail,  for  instance,  in  Jane  Eyre^  the 
curates  and  the  Yorkes  in  Shirley  ;  and  all  that 
marvellous  detail  in  Villette  which  has  for  ever 
preserved,  in  its  very  habit  as  it  lived,  that  pen- 
sionnat  of  Madame  Beck's  in  the  Rue  Fossette  : — 
one  may  look  upon  it  all  as  a  good  illustration  of 
a  saying  of  Goethe's.  In  one  of  his  talks  with 
Eckermann  he  says  that  the  rarest  and  best  kind 
of  imagination  is  that  which  spends  itself  on  the 
truth  near  at  hand.  Many  writers,  he  says,  with 
direct  reference  to  the  monsters  and  marvels  of  the 
German  Romantic  movement,  prefer  to  write  of 
strange  countries  and  times,  and  things  they  know 
nothing  about,  and  absurdly  believe  that  they 
cultivate  their  imagination  by  doing  so.  The 
master  in  poetry  or  fiction  is  he  who  can  give 
significance  and  beauty  to  the  simplest  incidents 
of  the  life  he  knows.  This  is  the  "  truth  em- 
bodied in  a  tale "  which  conquers  the  world. 
But  the  whole  question  is  as  to  the  degree  in 
which  the  poetic  faculty  can  transform  and  trans- 
mute the  detail   it  takes  from  reality. 

Emily  Bronte  possessed  the  power  of  trans- 
mutation to  a  supreme  degree.  In  spite  of  the 
apparent  realism  of  Wuthering  Heights^  its  harsh 
or  brutal  elements,  it  is  passionate  poetry — though 
without  a  trace  of  "  passion  "  in  the  ordinary 
sense — from  first  to  last.  Charlotte  possessed  the 
transmuting  power  less  perfectly  than  Emily.  But 
Villette  is  the  supreme  example  of  it  in  her.     All 

26 


Some    Thoughts  on   Charlotte  Brontt 

this  small  detail  of  a  girl's  school,  of  its  activities 
and  ambitions,  of  the  persons  living  in  it,  and  the 
forces  acting  upon  them,  will  live  when  half  the 
books  and  writers  we  are  accustomed  to  admire 
in  this  generation  are  wholly  forgotten.  The  race 
is  not  to  the  clever — or  the  voluble — or  the  in- 
dustrious— or  the  ingenious.  When  nobody  ever 
wants  to  look  at  The  New  Machiavelli  again, 
still  less  at  Anne  Veronica^  Villette  will  be  read 
and  loved.  Why  }  Not,  of  course,  because  of 
its  particular  detail  as  compared  with  any  other, 
but  because  of  the  poetry  and  personality  that 
hold  the  detail,  like  the  sunny  water  in  which  the 
river-weeds  sway  transfigured.  That  "  strange 
power  "  which  Emily  invoked  has  touched  it  and 
given  it  immortality. 

But  Charlotte  was  not  always  so  happy  in  her 
dealing  with  detail.  The  detail  of  the  country 
house  scenes  in  Jane  Eyre  is  extravagant  and 
absurd — a  little  vulgar  besides.  The  clerical 
detail  of  Shirley  leaves  me  uncomfortable  and 
unconvinced.  I  wish  that  Charlotte  had  not,  as 
she  confessed  to  Mr.  Williams,  photographed  the 
three  curates  from  the  life.  They  have  the  faults 
of  photography,  in  its  cruder  stages.  They  are 
not  transmuted  ;  they  remain  raw  and  clumsy. 
And  that  being  so,  the  magic  of  art  having  failed 
them,  the  moral  question  raises  its  head,  the  ques- 
tion of  justification  ;  and  one  remembers  perhaps, 
with  discomfort,  a  letter  printed  by  Mr.  Shorter, 

27 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

in  which  an  old  friend  of  Mr.  James  W.  Smith, 
the  original  of  the  Rev.  Peter  Malone — himself 
the  little  Sweeting  of  the  novel — denounces  Char- 
lotte Bronte's  "  photograph "  of  Peter  Malone 
as  "  false  and  cruel." 

The  moral  question  may  also  be  raised  with 
regard  to  Villette.  It  is  admitted  that  Madame 
Heger  was  the  original  of  Madame  Beck.  But 
Madame  Heger  had  shown  Charlotte  Bronte 
much  kindness,  and  she  was  so  justly  hurt  by 
the  portrait  of  Madame  Beck  that  when  Mrs. 
Gaskell  went  over  to  Brussels  in  search  of 
material  for  her  famous  Life^  Madame  Heger 
refused  to  see  her.  And  yet,  in  time,  you  have 
the  Heger  family,  as  it  seems  to  me,  recognizing, 
with  a  personal  magnanimity  which  is  dependent 
on  a  keen  sense  of  art  and  literature,  that  Villette 
is  a  wonderful  book,  that  it  is  quite  possible  to 
vindicate  kind  and  motherly  Madame  Heger 
from  Charlotte  Bronte's  misjudgment  of  the  real 
woman — but  that  Villelte  without  Madame  Beck 
would  have  been  a  shorn  masterpiece.  So  that 
artistically  Charlotte  Bronte  is  justified.  That  is 
to  say — thinking  of  literature — we  cannot  regret 
it.     For — "  qui  veut  la  fin,  veut  les  moyens." 

But  where  the  end — of  artistic  fusion — has  not 
been  reached,  where  the  material  taken  from  life 
remains  crude,  where  the  breath  of  the  "  maker  " 
has  not  passed  upon  it,  there  the  poet  and  the 
story-teller  becomes  again  an  ordinary  person  to 

28 


Some   Thoughts  on   Charlotte   Brotite 

be  judged  by  ordinary  rules  ;  and  although 
Madame  Beck  is  triumphant,  the  curates  in  Shirley 
may  be — at  any  rate  partially — wished  away  ! 

Imagination,  then — Celtic  imagination- — with  its 
head  in  the  clouds,  its  heart  on  fire,  its  hands  full 
of  treasures  gathered  from  the  common  earth,  and 
its  feet  walking  in  and  loving  the  wilder,  lone- 
lier paths  of  life — it  is  so  we  must  conceive 
Charlotte's  greatest  gift.  She  is  a  dreamer  who 
observes,  who  is  always  observing  ;  and  she  lives 
precisely  because  of  the  mingling  of  these  two 
strains  in  her — the  power  of  poetry  and  the  power 
of  bringing  the  poetic  faculty  to  bear  on  the  truth 
nearest  her,  the  facts  of  her  own  daily  life.  "  I 
have  seen  so  little,"  she  complains  once  or  twice. 
But  what  she  has  made  of  that  little  !  Beside 
Villette^  a  novel  of  a  girls'  school,  how  poor  and 
ephemeral — already — do  the  novels  look  which 
are  half  journalism — that  is,  either  rhetoric,  or 
information,  poured  out  for  other  ends  than  the 
creative,  the  poetic  end,  like  The  New  Machia- 
velliy  which  I  have  already  quoted  ;  or  the  novels 
which  rest  on  an  elaborate  "  documentation,"  like 
Zola's  Lourdes.  Poetry,  truth,  feeling ;  and  a 
passion  which  is  of  the  heart,  not  of  the  senses — 
these  are  Charlotte's  secrets.  They  are  simple, 
but  they  are  not  to  be  had  by  everybody  for  the 
asking.  Loti  in  the  Pkheur  d'Islande — Barrie 
in  The  Window  in  Thrums — many  Russians  in 
many   books — Victor    Hugo    in    much    of    Les 

29 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Misirables — George  Sand  in  her  Berri  stories 
and  in  large  sections  of  Consuelo — they,  with 
many  differences,  stand  in  the  same  literary  rank  ; 
they  walk  the  same  halls  in  the  "  House  of 
Fame  "  with  the  Brontes. 

There  are,  of  course,  other  types  and  voices  in 
the  House  of  Fame  ;  but  to  this  race  of  singers 
and  makers  at  least  the  golden  gates  are  always 
open  ;  to  the  passionate,  the  pure  in  heart,  the 
sincere. 

Well,  we  have  claimed  for  Charlotte  Bronte,  the 
artist,  imagination,  truth,  and  power.  It  is  one 
of  the  strongest  grounds  of  her  immortality  that 
she  was  also  a  loving,  faithful,  suffering  woman, 
with  a  personal  story  which,  thanks  to  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  Life^  will  never  cease  to  touch  the  hearts 
of  English  folk  while  literature  lasts.  That  best 
of  biographies  was  given  me  when  I  was  seven- 
teen by  a  dear  kinswoman — Matthew  Arnold's 
youngest  sister — now  one  of  the  few  survivors 
who  can  remember  the  living  Charlotte  ;  and  I 
vividly  recollect  its  effect  upon  me.  The  story 
of  the  gifted  children  in  the  small  grim  York- 
shire parsonage,  with  its  graveyard  in  front  and 
its  moors  behind  ;  their  books,  their  plays,  their 
life  in  dream  worlds  of  their  own,  more  real  to 
them  than  the  village  world  outside  : — I  knew  it 
once  by  heart.  I  could  see  the  parlour  in  the 
firelight,  with  the  three  whispering  to  each  other  ; 
I  could  hear  Martha  and  Tabby,  their  two  maids, 

30 


Some   Thoughts  on   Charlotte   Bronte 

in  the  kitchen.  The  long  village  street,  the  high 
moors  behind  the  parsonage,  the  night  winds 
blowing  over  them,  the  glory  of  the  heather  in 
summer,  and  the  snow  that  covered  them  in 
winter ;  they  were  all  familiar  to  me  through 
Mrs.  Gaskell's  art — as  to  many  others — before 
ever  I  set  eyes  on  the  real  Haworth.  And  to 
one  who  had  been  from  her  childhood  scribbling 
on  her  own  account  there  was  even  greater  fas- 
cination in  the  story  of  the  memorable  years — 
1846  and  1847 — which  saw  the  publication  of  the 
Poems  by  Currer,  Ellis,  and  Acton  Bell,  of  Jane 
Eyre  and  Wuthering  Heights.  The  sudden  journey 
of  the  two  sisters  to  London  ;  their  meeting  with 
their  astonished  publisher,  to  whom  their  arrival 
first  disclosed  the  identity  of  Currer  Bell,  the 
supposed  male  author  of  Jane  Eyre — that  book 
of  which  all  the  world  was  talking — with  the 
shy,  plainly  dressed,  tiny  creature  who,  with  sup- 
pressed excitement,  put  his  own  letter  received 
from  him  in  Yorkshire  the  day  before  into  his 
hands  as  her  credential  :  this  too  was  a  tale  of 
which  I  knew  every  turn.  And  a  year  after  the 
book  was  given  me,  I  remember  staying  with  a 
friend  in  Brunswick  Square  and  dragging  her 
out  at  night,  to  find  Paternoster  Row  and  the 
site  at  least  of  the  Chapter  Coffee  House.  I  had 
never  been  in  the  City  before,  and  I  remember 
the  thrill  of  the  deserted  streets,  the  strong  lights 
and  shades,  the  great  dome  hovering  darkly  over- 

31 


charlotte  Bronte:    a   Centenary  Memorial 

head,  the  darkness  and  silence  of  Paternoster 
Row  and  Amen  Corner  ;  then  Fleet  Street,  with 
its  illuminated  newspaper  offices  ;  and,  brooding 
over  it  all,  the  sense  of  history,  and  of  the 
"mighty  heart"  of  London,  "lying  still." 

J  little  thought  then  that  twenty  years  later 
I  should  myself  be  in  daily  communication,  as 
an  author,  with  the  same  Mr.  George  Smith  in 
whose  hands,  on  July  i6,  1848,  Charlotte  Bronte 
had  placed  his  own  letter  as  the  proof  of  her 
identity.  I  can  never  be  grateful  enough  to 
fortune  that  "  Dr.  John "  became  my  constant 
and  generous  friend,  as  he  had  been  Charlotte 
Bronte's.  When  I  first  knew  him  in  1886,  he 
was  no  longer  indeed  the  "  tall  young  man "  of 
twenty-three  whom  Charlotte  described  in  her 
letters  from  London.  But  he  was  still  in  every 
other  respect  the  same  man  whose  quick  intel- 
ligence discovered  the  Bronte  genius ;  whose 
endless  kindness  of  heart  and  knowledge  of  the 
resources  of  life  and  science  might  well,  had  she 
but  known  him  a  few  years  earlier,  have  enabled 
Charlotte  to  save  her  sisters  from  premature 
death.  When  I  made  acquaintance  with  him 
he  was  over  sixty,  with  a  full  and  varied  life 
behind  him ;  the  publisher  of  Thackeray  and 
Matthew  Arnold,  of  Trollope,  Huxley,  the 
Brownings,  Leslie  Stephen,  and  a  score  of  others. 
The  qualities  that  Charlotte  Bronte  knew  and 
described    in    the    picture    of    Graham    Bretton, 

32 


Some   Thoughts  on    Charlotte  Bronte 

who  becomes  the  "  Dr.  John "  of  Villettey  were 
all  there,  undlmmed.  The  help  of  them  was  fully 
given  to  me  through  fourteen  years  of  friendship, 
and  I  shall  cherish  while  I  live  the  memory  of 
"Dr.  John." 

We  often  talked  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  he 
spoke  once  to  me,  with  a  twinkle  of  humour,  of 
the  legend  that  he  had  proposed  to  her.  Charlotte 
herself,  of  course,  disposes  of  the  notion,  to  begin 
with.  She  writes  to  Ellen  Nussey  that  her  young 
publisher  and  she  "  understand  each  other  very 
well,  and  respect  each  other  very  sincerely.  We 
both  know  the  wide  breach  time  has  made 
between  us ;  we  do  not  embarrass  each  other, 
or  very  rarely  ;  my  six  or  eight  years  of  seniority, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  lack  of  all  pretension  to 
beauty,  are  a  perfect  safeguard."  The  "tall  young 
man,"  like  other  tall  young  men,  was  indeed — as 
Miss  Bronte  guessed — very  susceptible  to  beauty. 
The  wife  whom  Charlotte  Bronte  did  not  live 
long  enough  to  see,  to  whom,  all  her  life,  George 
Smith  was  blessing  and  sunshine,  was  beautiful 
even  as  I  remember  her  last,  in  the  year  of  the 
outbreak  of  war,  1914,  when  she  was  over  eighty. 
But  it  was  George  Smith's  gift  for  friendship — 
true,  faithful  friendship — which  marked  him  out 
from  others.  Charlotte  Bronte's  short,  sad  life 
was  made  the  happier  by  it  in  a  score  of  ways  ; 
and  I,  brought  forty  years  later  into  close  and 
long  relation  with  the  same  man,  can  only  testify, 

33  C 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

with  a  hundred  others  in  like  case,  that  success 
and  fortune  never  spoiled  "  Dr.  John."  And  it 
was  his  peculiar  gift  to  be  able  to  hand  on  this 
tradition  of  friendship  in  business  relations  to  his 
colleague  and  successor  in  the  historic  firm  of 
Smith  and  Elder.  The  recent  death  of  his  son- 
in-law,  Mr.  Reginald  Smith,  who  married  "  Dr. 
John's"  youngest  daughter,  and  carried  on  the 
publishing  business  for  sixteen  years  after  George 
Smith's  death,  has  left  a  gap  in  the  lives  of  many 
men  and  women  of  this  literary  day,  my  own 
among  them,  which  will  hardly  be  filled.  For 
both  he  and  the  great  man  who  preceded  him 
belonged  to  that  small  band  in  each  generation 
who  are  able  to  infuse  into  the  daily  ways  and 
actions  of  practical  life  the  quality  and  beauty  of 
their  own  high  and  beneficent  spirit. 

1  have  some  other  personal  links  with  Charlotte 
Bronte  which  I  like  to  think  of.  The  interesting 
letter  printed  by  Mrs.  Gaskell  as  written  by  a 
"neighbour"  in  1850,  describing  a  visit  to 
Haworth  in  that  year,  was  written  by  my  aunt 
and  godmother,  Mrs.  W.  E.  Forster,  the  wife  of 
the  Yorkshire  member  of  Parliament  who  later  on 
became  the  Education  Minister  of  1870,  and 
Irish  Chief  Secretary,  in  the  terrible  years  1880-2. 
Before  that  visit,  however,  Charlotte  Bronte  had 
made  friends  in  the  Lake  country  with  my  own 
people,  the  widow  and  children  of  Dr.  Arnold, 
of  Rugby  ;    and  last  summer  I  talked  over  the 

34 


Some   Thoughts  on   Charlotte  Bronte 

visit  of  Charlotte  and  Miss  Martineau  to  Fox 
How,  with  Dr.  Arnold's  youngest  daughter  and 
only  surviving  child,  who  still  remembers  it. 
Miss  Martineau  and  Charlotte  Bronte  came  over 
to  drink  tea,  and  there  was  a  young  Oxonian  in 
the  room,  who  looked  at  them  with  amused  and 
critical  eyes,  writing  afterwards  to  a  friend  : — 

"At  seven  came  Miss  Martineau  and  Miss 
Bronte  {Jane  Eyre)  ;  I  talked  to  Miss  Martineau 
(who  blasphemes  frightfully)  about  the  prospects 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and,  wretched  man 
that  I  am,  promised  to  go  and  see  her  cow- 
keeping  miracles  to-morrow,  I  who  hardly  know 
a  cow  from  a  sheep.  I  talked  to  Miss  Bronte 
(past  thirty  and  plain,  with  expressive  grey  eyes, 
though)  of  her  curates,  of  French  novels,  and 
her  education  in  a  school  at  Brussels,  and  sent 
the  lions  roaring  to  their  dens  at  half-past  nine." 

Miss  Bronte,  who  talked  very  little,  was  not 
apparently  much  drawn  to  the  young  author 
of  The  Strayed  Reveller^  which  had  appeared 
three  years  earlier.  She  thought  his  manner 
"  foppish,"  and  understood  that  "  his  theological 
opinions  were  very  vague  and  unsettled."  But 
she  knew  that  already  he  was  the  author  of  "a 
volume  of  poems,"  which,  however,  she  had  not 
seen.  I  wish  she  had  seen  it  :  there  are  many 
things  in  that  first  volume  which  would  have 
spoken  to  her.  And  I  wish  she  could  have 
foreseen  that  from  that  young  unknown  Matthew 

55 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Arnold,  whom  she  met  in  the  Fox  How  drawing- 
room,  would  come  that  tribute  to  her  great 
sister  Emily,  which,  long  before  the  Bronte  cult 
had  risen  to  anything  like  its  present  height, 
bore  testimony  once  again  to  that  freemasonry, 
that  quick  mutual  divination  which  marks  the 
"  little  clan  "  of  poets,  to  whom,  from  age  to 
age,  is  left,  in  Keat's  phrase,  the  carrying  on  of 
"  great  verse."  But  these  things  were  hidden 
from  the  *'  expressive  grey  eyes "  my  uticle 
noticed.  Only,  as  though  some  prescience  of 
them  touched  her,  as  Miss  Bronte  left  the  room, 
she  passed  my  aunt,  then  a  girl  of  seventeen, 
who  was  holding  the  door  open,  and  suddenly 
the  little  shy,  silent  woman  said  :  "  May  1  kiss 
you  ?  "  and  to  the  girl's  astonishment  darted 
forward  and  kissed  her.  It  was  a  very  character- 
istic, a  very  Bronte-ish,  touch.  Compunction, 
perhaps,  for  that  strange  paralysis,  that  silence 
benumbing  to  herself  and  other  people,  which 
often  fell  upon  her  in  society,  and  once — as  we 
know  from  an  inimitable  page  of  Lady  Ritchie's 
— drove  Thackeray  into  letting  himself  out 
quietly  from  his  own  front  door,  in  the  very 
midst  of  a  party  he  himself  had  gathered  in 
her  honour  ;  quick  feeling  ;  quick  gratefulness 
perhaps  for  the  welcome  given  her  by  these  un- 
known people  :  there  is  all  this  in  it  and  more. 

"  And  did  you  once  see  Shelley  plain. 
And  did  he  stop  and  speak  to  you  ? " 

36 


Some   Thoughts  on  Charlotte  Bronte 

It  is  with  something  of  the  same  wistfulness, 
the  same  suppressed  excitement  as  Browning  here 
expresses,  that  one  talks  now  with  one  of  the 
very  few  persons  in  the  world  who  ever  saw 
Charlotte  Bronte. 

FinallV)  what  is  it  that  makes  the  charm  ? 
Along  with  the  Celtic  qualities,  as  we  know, 
she  had  the  Celtic  faults — occasional  arrogance, 
occasional  vulgarity  and  extravagance.  Emily 
Bronte  had  none  of  the  loose  rhetoric  and 
shallow  didactic  into  which  Charlotte  often  fell. 
But  for  all  that  Charlotte  wielded  a  natural 
magic  of  words,  as  George  Sand  did.  There 
arc  passages  in  her  letters — especially  in  those 
describing  the  deaths  of  her  sisters — that  belong 
to  the  noblest  and  most  moving  of  English 
prose.  To  return  to  the  phrase  of  M.  Renan, 
she  had  the  "  gift  of  piercing "  ;  she  had  been 
in  fairy-land  and  brought  back  the  tones  of  it — 
tones  as  often  sad  as  gay  ;  and  she  possessed  in 
fiction  an  art  of  representation,  especially  an  art 
of  dialogue,  which  was  all  her  own,  instinct 
with  poetry  and  life.  Which  was  the  greater, 
she  or  Emily  .<*  To  my  mind,  Emily,  by  far. 
But  one  is  reminded  of  another  saying  of 
Goethe's  to  Eckermann  :  "  For  twenty  years  the 
public  has  been  disputing  which  is  the  greater, 
Schiller  or  I — and  it  ought  to  be  glad  that  it  has 
got  a  couple  of  fellows  about  whom  it  can  dispute." 

Well,  Yorkshire  too   may    be  proud,  I  think, 

37 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a    Centenary  Memorial 

that  among  its  moors  and  heaths  were  reared 
not  one  Charlotte  Bronte,  but  such  a  far  nobile 
fratrum  (to  rescue  the  phrase  of  Horace  from 
its  original  context)  as  Currer  and  Ellis  Bell. 
Yorkshire  does  well  to  keep  their  memories 
green ;  to  read,  discuss  them,  and,  at  n^^di^ 
dispute  about  them. 

"  What  do  we  mean  by  originality  ?  "  Goethe 
asks  again.  "  As  soon  as  we  are  born  the 
world  begins  to  work  upon  us,  and  this  goes 
on  to  the  end.  And  after  all,  what  can  we  call 
our  own  except  energy,  strength,  and  will }  " 

"  Energy,  strength,  and  will."  As  writers, 
Charlotte  and  Emily  possessed  them  all,  to  a 
marvellous  degree.  If  you  add  feeling,  fire, 
magic — poetry,  in  short ! — you  come  as  near 
perhaps  as  you  can  come  to  the  definition  of 
their  place  in  Literature. 

Pale  sisters  !  children  of  the  moorland  scree, 

Deep  dale  and  murmuring  river,  where  ye  plied 

All  household  arts,  meek,  passion-taught,  and  free, 

Kinship  your  joy,  and  fantasy  your  guide  ! — 

Ah  !  who  again  'mid  English  heaths  shall  see 

Such  strength  in  frailest  weakness,  or  so  fierce 

Behest  on  tender  women  laid,  to  pierce 

The  world's  dull  ear  with  burning  poetry  ? 

Whence  was  your  spell  ? — and  at  what  magic  spring. 

Under  what  guardian  Muse,  drank  ye  so  deep 

That  still  ye  call,  and  we  are  listening  ; 

That  still  ye  plain  to  us,  and  we  must  weep  ? 

— Ask  of  the  winds  that  haunt  the  moors,  what  breath 

Blows  in  their  storms,  outlasting  life  and  death  ! 

38 


/■• 


-^•.  , 

f^^: 


'  / 


^  ..*<■ 


MRS.   GASKELL. 


To  face  p.  38. 


A    WORD   ON    CHARLOTTE 
BRONTE 

By   EDMUND   GOSSE 

r 


A   WORD  ON   CHARLOTTE   BRONTE 

The  century  which  has  slipped  by  since  the 
birth  of  Charlotte  Bronte  may  roughly  be  divided, 
so  far  as  she  alone  is  concerned,  into  four  equal 
sections  which  claim  our  attention.  During  the 
first  of  these  she  was  preparing,  in  conditions 
at  once  extraordinarily  romantic  and  of  the  most 
painful  mediocrity,  for  her  labours  as  a  novelist. 
Another  quarter  of  a  century  closes  in  her  first 
apotheosis,  the  publication  of  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
admirable  Life  of  her.  Exposed  to  new  currents 
of  popular  taste,  her  reputation  now  began 
slowly  to  decline,  till  it  was  thought  necessary 
to  assert,  by  way  of  defence,  that  her  works 
"  will  one  day  again  be  regarded  as  evidences  of 
exceptional  intellectual  power."  Throughout  a 
final  period  this  moderate  estimate  has  been  vastly 
exceeded.  The  apologist  who  would  now  claim 
for  her  no  more  praise  than  that  would  be 
laughed  out  of  court,  and  what,  in  starting  in 
a  blaze  of  glory  upon  her  second  century, 
Charlotte  Bronte  most  pathetically  calls  for  is, 
not  blank  appreciation,  but  some  judicious 
exercise  of  praise. 

41 


charlotte  Bronta :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

In  the  evolution  of  her  fame,  her  disadvan- 
tages have  been  transformed  into  advantages,  as 
toads  are  bewitched  into  pearls  in  some  old 
fairy-story.  The  hard,  dry  atmosphere  of  Ha- 
worth,  in  the  blast  of  a  perpetual  moral  east 
wind ;  the  narrowness  of  the  stage  which  the 
three  wonderful  sisters  trod ;  the  ugliness  which 
surrounded  them  ;  the  barrier  which  divided 
them  from  the  social  amenities, — all  these  are 
elements  in  the  miracle  of  their  production,  and 
each  of  these  elements  has  added  something  to 
the  fascination  of  their  books.  We  read  these 
with  trebled  interest  because  we  know  what  the 
conditions  were.  But  we  are  in  danger  of  not 
perceiving  that  they  were  disadvantageous,  of 
supposing  that  they  added  a  lustre  to  the  genius 
of  the  sisters,  that  they  were  intrinsically  valuable. 
It  is  worse  than  useless  to  regret  any  of  the 
facts  of  literary  history,  but  at  least  we  need  not 
exult  in  them.  Among  the  disadvantages  of 
Charlotte  I  place  very  high  the  puritanism  which 
surrounded  her  from  her  cradle,  and  which 
entered  into  her  very  bones.  It  made  her  use- 
lessly and  contentiously  austere,  and  it  darkened 
her  outlook  upon  life.  That  artificial  deepen- 
ing of  the  shadows  may  render  her  work  more 
picturesque,  but  it  deprives  it  of  harmony.  It 
gives  a  certain  aspect  of  the  dried  or  shrivelled 
to  Charlotte's  books  when  we  compare  them  with 
the    serene    fulness,    the    rich    and    harmonious 

42 


A  Word  on  Charlotte  Brontt' 

suavity,  the  ripeness,  of  the  masterpieces  of  her 
supreme  contemporary,  George  Sand. 

The  imagination  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  despite 
its  prodigious  vitality,  was  a  little  puerile. 
When  she  trusted  to  her  own  ears  and  eyes 
she  was  excellent,  but  the  narrow  range  within 
which  observation  was  possible  for  her  leaves 
us  to  the  last  with  an  impression  of  her  as  a 
wonderful  young  person  who  never  quite  grew 
up.  She  has  the  impatience,  the  unreasonable 
angers  and  revolts,  of  an  unappreciated  adolescent. 
When  she  seems  most  certainly  adult  she  has 
still  her  rebellious  air  of  enduring  tribulation  with 
an  angry  fortitude.  Her  ignorance  sets  traps 
for  her,  and  she  falls  into  them  without  a 
struggle.  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  has  com- 
mented on  the  amazing  conversations  of  the 
smart  people  at  Thornfield  Hall.  Polite  writers, 
indulging  the  snobbishness  of  literature,  think  it 
would  have  been  "  charming  "  to  talk  to  Char-* 
lotte  Bronte.  It  would  probably  have  been 
disconcerting  to  the  highest  degree,  and  Lady 
Ritchie's  recollection  of  the  London  visit  should 
be  a  warning  to  such  lioness-hunters  of  the 
imagination. 

It  is  a  pity,  perhaps,  that  Charlotte,  when  the 
hour  of  unwelcome  exile  came,  did  not  go  to 
Paris  instead  of  to  Brussels.  What  her  mind 
and  her  temperament  needed  then  (in  1842) 
was  sunshine,  geniality,  ease,  and   breadth.     She 

43 


Charlotte  Bronfe :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

proceeded  on  her  sordid  journey  with  her  nerves 
on  edge,  her  fists  clenched,  her  eyes  set  with  a 
fierce  derision.  In  the  Belgium  of  those  days 
there  was  nothing  which  could  be  expected  to 
soften  her  asperities  or  to  civilize  her  moorland 
savagery.  There  should  have  been,  on  the 
other  hand,  much  for  her  to  sympathize  with 
in  the  attitude  of  her  Parisian  contemporaries, 
if  merely  in  the  remarkable  spectacle  of  that 
conflict  which  was  raging  between  the  romantic 
and  the  realistic.  It  would  have  been  a  whole- 
some thing  for  Charlotte  to  have  been  persuaded 
that  there  are  relations,  conditions,  aspirations 
in  the  human  soul  not  dreamed  of  by  Lucy 
Snowe  or  even  by  Jane  Eyre.  I  do  not  think 
that  her  own  creations  would  have  thrilled  us 
less,  but  in  the  long  run  probably  more,  if  she 
had  studied,  with  humility  and  complaisance, 
the  processes  of  the  mighty  mind  of  Balzac. 
But  she  was  protected  against  sympathy  by  a 
moral  pride  (we  should  call  it  arrogance  if  we 
were  not  so  fond  of  her)  which  closed  to 
her  violent  individuality  all  the  pathways  of 
instruction.  She  could  only  learn  what  she 
taught  herself. 

We  must  admit,  even  at  this  moment  of 
exaltation,  that  she  had  faults — faults  of  know- 
ledge, of  temper,  of  social  experience.  But  her 
errors  included  none  against  high  feeling.  What 
she  endured,  what  she  perceived,  she  reproduced 

44 


A  Word  on   Charlotte  Bronte 

with  the  purest  intensity,  an  intensity  which 
transfers  itself  to  the  reader,  who  admits  that  he 
is  thrilled,  in  her  own  splendid  phrase,  ''  to  the 
finest  fibre  of  my  being,  sir  !  "  To  this  expres- 
sion of  concentrated  emotion  she  brought  a 
faculty  of  power  in  which  her  work  is  unique. 
She  has  a  spell  by  means  of  which  she  holds  us 
enchanted,  while  she  lays  before  us  the  distresses 
and  the  exasperations  of  humanity.  Her  great 
gift,  no  doubt,  lay  in  the  unconscious  courage 
with  which  she  broke  up  the  stereotyped  com- 
placency of  the  age.  Her  passion  swept  over 
the  pools  of  Early  Victorian  fiction  and  roused 
them  to  storm  ;  the  undulations  that  it  set  in 
motion  have  been  vibrating  in  our  literature 
ever  since,  and  perhaps  the  most  wonderful 
fact  about  Charlotte  Bronte  is  that  the  eman- 
cipation of  English  fiction  from  the  chains  of 
conventionality  should  have  been  brought  about, 
against  her  own  will,  by  this  little  provincial 
Puritan.  She  was,  in  her  own  words,  "  furnace- 
tried  by  pain,  stamped  by  constancy,"  and  out 
of  her  fires  she  rose,  a  Phcenix  of  poetic  fancy, 
crude  yet  without  a  rival,  and  now,  in  spite  of 
all  imperfections,  to  live  for  ever  in  the  forefront 
of  creative  English  genius. 

EDMUND    GOSSE, 


45 


CHARLOTTE    BRONTE    AS    A 
ROMANTIC 

By   G.   K.   CHESTERTON 


CHARLOTTE   BRONTE   AS   A 
ROMANTIC 

The  genius  of  Charlotte  Bronte  is  unique  in  the 
only  valuable  sense  in  which  the  word  can  be 
applied ;  the  only  sense  which  separates  the  rarity 
of  some  gift  in  a  poet  from  the  rarity  of  some 
delusion  in  an  asylum.  However  complex  or 
even  grotesque  an  artistic  power  may  be,  it 
must  be  as  these  qualities  exist  in  a  key,  which 
is  one  of  the  most  complex  and  grotesque  of 
human  objects,  but  which  has  for  its  object  the 
opening  of  doors  and  the  entrance  into  wider 
things.  Charlotte  Bronte's  art  was  something 
more  or  less  than  complex  :  and  it  was  not  to 
be  described  as  grotesque  ;  except  rarely — and 
unintentionally.  But  it  was  temperamental  and, 
like  all  things  depending  on  temperament,  un- 
equal :  and  it  was  so  personal  as  to  be  perverse. 
It  is  in  connection  with  power  of  this  kind, 
however  creative,  that  we  have  to  discover  and 
define  what  distinguishes  it  from  the  uncreativc 
intensity  of  the  insane.  I  cannot  understand 
what  it  was  that  made  the  Philistines  of  a  former 

49  D 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

generation  regard  Jane  Eyre  as  morally  unsound  ; 
probably  it  was  its  almost  exaggerated  morality. 
But  if  they  had  regarded  it  as  mentally  unsound, 
I  could  have  understood  their  prejudice,  while 
perceiving  the  nature  of  their  error.  Jane  Eyre 
is,  among  other  things,  one  of  the  finest  detective 
stories  in  the  world ;  and  for  any  one  artistically 
attuned  to  that  rather  electric  atmosphere,  the 
discovery  of  the  mad  wife  of  Rochester  is,  as  that 
type  of  artistic  sensation  should  always  be,  at  once 
startling  and  suitable.  But  a  stolid  reader,  trained 
in  a  tamer  school  of  fiction,  might  be  excused,  I 
think,  if  he  came  to  the.  conclusion  that  the  wife 
was  not  very  much  madder  than  her  husband,  and 
that  even  the  governess  herself  was  a  little  queer. 
Such  a  critic,  however,  would  be  ill-taught,  as 
people  often  are  in  tame  schools  ;  for  the  mildest 
school  is  anything  but  the  most  moral.  The 
distinction  between  the  liberating  violence  that 
belongs  to  virtue,  as  distinct  from  the  merely 
burrowing  and  self-burying  violence  that  belongs 
to  vice,  is  something  that  can  only  be  conveyed 
by  metaphors;  such  as  that  I  have  used  about 
the  key.  Some  may  feel  disposed  to  say  that  the 
Bronte  spirit  was  not  so  much  a  key  as  a  battering- 
ram.  She  had  indeed  some  command  of  both 
instruments,  and  could  use  the  more  domestic 
one  quietly  enough  at  times ;  but  the  vital  point 
is  that  they  opened  the  doors.  Or  it  might  be 
said  that  Jane  Eyre  and  the  mad  woman  lived  in 

50 


charlotte  Bronte  as  a  Romantic 

the  same  dark  and  rambling  house  of  mystery, 
but  for  the  maniac  all  doors  opened  continually 
inwards,  while  for  the  heroine  all  doors,  one  after 
•the  other,  opened  outwards  towards  the  sun. 

One  of  these  universal  values  in  the  case  of 
Charlotte  Bronte  is  the  light  she  throws  on  a 
very  fashionable  aesthetic  fallacy  :  the  over- 
iterated  contrast  between  realism  and  romance. 
They  are  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  two  alternative 
types  of  art,  and  sometimes  even  as  if  they  were 
two  antagonistic  directions  of  spiritual  obligation. 
But  in  truth  they  are  things  in  two  different 
categories  ;  and,  like  all  such  things,  can  exist 
together,  or  apart,  or  in  any  degree  of  combina- 
tion. Romance  is  a  spirit ;  and  as  for  realism, 
it  is  a  convention.  To  say  that  some  literary 
work  is  realistic,  not  romantic,  is  to  be  as 
inconsequent  as  the  man  who  said  to  me  once 
(and  it  is  heart-breaking  to  reflect  how  many 
scores  of  equally  inconsequent  people  have  said 
it),  "  The  Irish  are  warm-hearted,  not  logical." 
He,  at  any  rate,  was  not  logical,  or  he  would 
have  seen  that  his  statement  was  like  saying  that 
somebody  was  red-haired  rather  than  athletic. 
There  is  no  kind  of  reason  why  a  man  with 
strong  reasoning  power  should  not  have  strong 
affections  ;  and  it  is  my  experience,  if  anything, 
that  the  man  who  can  argue  clearly  in  the 
abstract  generally  does  have  a  generosity  of 
blood   and   instincts.     But  he  may  not  have  it  ; 

51 


Charlotte  Bront'd :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

for  the  things  are  in  different  categories.  This 
case  of  an  error  about  the  Irish  has  some  appli- 
cation to  the  individual  case  of  Charlotte  Bronte, 
who  was  Irish  by  blood,  and  in  a  sense,  all  the 
more  Irish  for  being  brought  up  in  Yorkshire. 
An  Irish  friend  of  mine,  who  suffers  the  same  exile 
in  the  same  environment,  once  made  to  me  the 
suggestive  remark  that  the  towering  and  over- 
masculine  barbarians  and  lunatics,  who  dominate 
the  Bronte  novels,  simply  represent  the  impres- 
sion produced  by  the  rather  boastful  Yorkshire 
manners  upon  the  more  civilized  and  sensitive 
Irish  temperament.  But  the  wider  application 
is  that  romance  is  an  atmosphere,  as  distinct  as 
a  separate  dimension,  which  co-exists  with  and 
penetrates  the  whole  work  of  Charlotte  Bronte  ; 
and  is  equally  present  in  all  her  considerable 
triumphs  of  realism,  and  in  her  even  greater 
triumphs  of  unreality. 

Realism  is  a  convention,  as  I  have  said  :  it 
is  generally  a  matter  of  external  artistic  form, 
when  it  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  fashion  or  con- 
venience, how  far  the  details  of  life  are  given, 
or  how  far  they  are  the  details  of  the  life  we 
know  best.  It  may  be  rather  more  difficult  to 
describe  a  winged  horse  than  a  war  horse  :  but 
after  all  it  is  as  easy  to  count  feathers  as  to 
count  hairs ;  it  is  as  easy  and  as  dull.  The 
story  about  a  hero  in  which  the  hairs  of  his 
horse  were  all  numbered  would  not  be  a  story 

52 


Charlotte  Bronte  as  a  Romantic 

at  all ;  the  line  must  be  drawn  a  long  while 
before  we  come  to  anything  like  literal  reality  ; 
and  the  question  of  whether  we  give  the  horse 
his  wings,  or  even  trouble  to  mention  his  colour, 
is  merely  a  question  of  the  artistic  form  we  have 
chosen.  It  is  the  question  between  casting  a 
horse  in  bronze  or  carving  him  in  marble  ;  not 
the  question  between  describing  a  horse  for  the 
purposes  of  a  zoologist  or  for  the  purposes  of  a 
bookie.  But  the  spirit  of  the  work  is  quite 
another  thing.  Works  of  the  wildest  fantasti- 
cality in  form  can  be  filled  with  a  rationalistic 
and  even  a  sober  spirit :  as  are  some  of  the  works 
of  Lucian,  of  Swift  and  of  Voltaire.  On  the 
other  hand,  descriptions  of  the  most  humdrum 
environments,  told  with  the  most  homely  inti- 
macy, can  be  shot  through  and  through  with 
the  richest  intensity,  not  only  of  the  spirit  of 
sentiment  but  of  the  spirit  of  adventure.  Few 
will  be  impelled  to  call  the  household  of  Mr. 
Rochester  a  humdrum  environment ;  but  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  Charlotte  Bronte  can  fill  the 
quietest  rooms  and  corners  with  a  psychological 
romance  which  is  rather  a  matter  of  temperature 
than  of  time  or  place.  After  all,  the  sympathetic 
treatment  of  Mr.  Rochester  in  Jane  Eyre  is 
not  more  intrinsically  romantic  and  even  exag- 
gerative than  the  sympathetic  treatment  of  Mr. 
Paul  Emanuel  in  Villette  ;  though  the  first 
may  be  superficially  a  sort   of  demon    and   the 

53 


Charlotte  BrontS :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

second  more  in  the  nature  of  an  imp.  To 
present  Mr.  Emanuel  sympathetically  at  all 
was  something  of  an  arduous  and  chivalric 
adventure.  And  Charlotte  Bronte  was  chivalric 
in  this  perfectly  serious  sense  ;  perhaps  in  too 
serious  a  sense,  for  she  paid  for  the  red-hot 
reality  of  her  romance  in  a  certain  insufficiency 
of  humour.  She  was  adventurous,  but  in  an 
intensely  individualistic  and  therefore  an  in- 
tensely womanly  way.  It  is  the  most  feminine 
thing  about  her  that  we  can  think  of  her  as  a 
knight-errant,  but  hardly  as  one  of  an  order  or 
round  table  of  knights-errant.  Thackeray  said 
that  she  reminded  him  of  Joan  of  Arc.  But 
it  is  one  of  the  fascinating  elements  in  the  long 
romance  of  Christendom  that  figures  like  Joan 
of  Arc  have  an  existence  in  romance  apart  from, 
and  even  before,  their  existence  in  reality.  This 
vision  of  the  solitary  virgin,  adventurous  and  in 
arms,  is  very  old  in  European  literature  and 
mythology  ;  and  the  spirit  of  it  went  with  the 
little  governess  along  the  roads  to  the  dark 
mansion  of  madness  as  if  to  the  castle  of  an 
ogre.  The  same  tale  had  run  like  a  silver  thread 
through  the  purple  tapestries  of  Ariosto ;  and 
we  may  willingly  salute  in  our  great  country- 
woman, especially  amid  the  greatest  epic  of  our 
country,  something  of  that  nobility  which  is  in 
the  very  name  of  Britomart. 

G.    K.    CHESTERTON, 

54 


CHARLOTTE    BRONTE 
A   PERSONAL  SKETCH 

Bt  ARTHUR  C.  BENSON 


CHARLOTTE    BRONTE:    A    PERSONAL 
SKETCH 

Charlotte  Bronte  was  born  a  century  ago, 
on  April  21,  1 8 1 6  ;  and  she  died  on  March 
31,  1855.  Yet  in  those  short  years,  years  of 
bleak  and  hard  nurture,  much  depressing  ill- 
health,  tragic  sorrow,  such  as  fall  to  the  lot  of 
but  few  human  beings,  and  with  a  temperament 
so  highly  strung  and  sensitive  that  the  simplest 
situations  of  life  overwhelmed  her  with  nervous 
terrors,  she  attained  an  enduring  fame,  which 
has  increased  and  broadened  every  year.  But 
not  only  that.  There  are  certain  figures  of 
undeniable  genius,  whose  work  remains  as  a 
substantial  and  venerated  contribution  to  human 
thought,  but  whose  personality  becomes  absorbed 
and  folded  into  the  past.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  men  and  women,  the  fascination  of 
whose  personality  and  life  seems  even  stronger 
than  that  of  their  books.  The  smallest  details 
of  their  career  are  cherished,  and  contemporary 
records  are  ransacked  for  traces  of  their  words 
and   acts.     This   is    undeniably    the    case    with 

S7 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

Charlotte  Bronte.  She  was  not  one  of  those 
who  put  the  whole  of  themselves  into  their  books, 
leaving  their  lives  silent  and  featureless.  Rather 
her  books  were  just  the  natural  outcome  and 
expression  of  her  inmost  self.  The  qualities 
which  her  deeply  seated  diffidence  prevented  her 
from  displaying  in  daily  life,  her  humour,  her 
penetrating  insight,  her  delicate  fancy,  her 
liveliness,  her  passionate  affections,  her  noble 
scorn  of  all  that  was  cold  or  mean,  all  these 
flashed  into  life  on  her  pages. 

When  her  first  great  book,  Jane  Eyre^ 
appeared  in  1847,  it  provoked  attention  and 
speculation  by  its  daring,  its  unconventional 
standards,  its  realistic  sensationalism,  and  its 
austere  and  beautiful  rendering  of  natural  scenes. 
But  it  was  hardly  realized  at  first  that  it  contained 
more  than  a  novel  kind  of  sentiment,  bolder, 
more  natural,  more  self-revealing  than  the 
orthodox  and  homely  pieties  of  current  fiction. 
It  evoked,  it  is  true,  both  protest  and  even  in- 
dignation by  a  frankness  which  was  confused  with 
indelicacy.  But  the  later  books,  Shirley  and 
FilieUe,  less  romantic,  more  restrained,  more 
mature,  brought  home  to  their  readers  that  a 
new  philosophy  of  love,  from  the  woman's  point 
of  view,  was  here  resolutely  depicted.  It  was 
not  a  revolt  against  tame  and  formal  conven- 
tions so  much  as  a  new  sense  of  right  and  dignity, 
a  manifesto,  so  to  speak,  of  the  equality  of  noble 

5S 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Personal  Sketch 

love.  Compare  the  conception  of  love,  from 
the  woman's  standpoint,  in  the  novels  of  Dickens 
and  Thackeray,  with  Charlotte  Bronte's  concep- 
tion. In  Dickens  and  Thackeray  love  is  at 
best  a  reward,  a  privilege,  graciously  tendered 
and  rapturously  accepted  ;  and  the  highest  con- 
ception of  wifely  love  is  one  of  fidelity  and 
patience  and  unselfish  tendance  gently  rendered 
by  a  domestic  angel,  whose  glory  is  self-repres- 
sion, and  whose  highest  praise  is  to  afford  an 
uncritical  haven  of  repose  to  an  undisputed 
master. 

But  in  Charlotte  Bronte's  books  it  is  far  other- 
wise. The  woman  does  not  look  upon  marriage 
as  the  door  of  escape  from  obscurity  into  activity. 
Her  love  is  rather  a  noble  surrender,  only  to  be 
won  by  a  surrender  no  less  noble.  Marriage  is 
not  submission,  but  a  free  and  glowing  partner- 
ship, in  which  man  and  woman  alike  have  to  do 
their  best,  in  tenderness  and  reverence  and  grati- 
tude, to  maintain  their  love  undimmed  and  ardent. 
The  man  is  not  to  decline  into  a  comfortable 
supremacy  surrounded  by  delicate  attentions,  with 
full  freedom  to  indulge  his  humours.  It  is  rather 
to  be  a  sacred  and  impassioned  relationship,  in 
which  both  alike  have  to  do  their  utmost  to  keep 
the  mutual  ideal  of  loyalty  and  duty  fresh  and 
pure.  Passionate  as  the  affection  is  which  draws 
Charlotte  Bronte's  lovers  together — was  ever  the 
incredible  thrill  of  human  contact,  the  blankness 

59 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

of  separation,  the  joy  of  meeting  drawn  with  so 
bold  an  outspokenness  ? — yet  there  is  always 
present  in  her  love-affairs  the  germ  of  a  deep 
and  tender  friendship,  sure  to  broaden  and  de- 
velop, as  the  years  go  on,  into  a  perfect  trust 
and  union.  Whatever  happens,  the  two  are 
always  to  be  themselves^  not  a  faint  and  sym- 
pathetic copy  of  each  other,  but  strong  and 
independent,  linked  together  in  a  joyful  and 
grateful  service.  That  is,  I  believe,  the  message  of 
Charlotte  Bronte's  books — the  high  equality  of  love. 
Let  us  think  for  a  moment  of  the  background 
upon  which  this  great  and  noble  creed  outlined 
itself.  A  bleak  and  wind-swept  vicarage,  between 
the  hill-village  and  the  moor.  The  mother  fades 
early  out  of  life  ;  the  father  lives  in  a  fiery  and 
impotent  seclusion.  The  children  live  their  own 
lives,  doing  much  of  the  house-work,  and  in- 
dulging in  endless  plays  and  romances.  They 
go  off  to  school,  and  two  of  the  delicate  creatures 
fall  victims  to  hard  and  insanitary  conditions. 
The  four  who  remain  are  drawn  closely  together, 
a  brother  of  amazing  brilliance,  one  sister,  Emily, 
a  poetess  of  high  genius,  but  with  a  horror  of  the 
intrusive  world,  a  younger  sister,  Anne,  of  tender 
if  sombre  piety,  and  Charlotte  herself.  All  their 
little  adventures,  school-teaching  and  governess- 
ships,  are  poisoned  by  shyness  and  home-sickness. 
But  in  the  sojourn  of  Charlotte  and  Emily  in 
Brussels,  at  a  girls'  school,  where   they  are  half 

60 


Charlotte   Bronte':    a  Personal  Sketch 

pupils  and  half  teachers,  Charlotte  Bronte's  heart 
and  mind  awake  in  an  unconscious  passion  for  a 
teacher,  M.  Heger,  a  man  of  insight,  mental 
power,  intellectual  and  moral  stimulus.  That 
was  really  the  moulding  influence  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  genius.  It  gave  her  an  unrequited  devo- 
tion, but  initiated  her  into  the  mystery  of  love, 
while  it  gave  her  mind  its  firm  and  fine  maturity. 
Then  the  tragedy  deepens  and  thickens  ;  the 
brother  comes  to  hopeless  grief,  and  saddens  the 
house  by  his  dreary  and  base  excesses.  He  dies 
at  last,  and  the  other  sisters  follow  him  swiftly 
to  the  grave.  But  it  was  then,  in  solitude  and 
sorrow,  that  Charlotte  Bronte's  mind  flowered 
in  her  noblest  book,  Villette  ;  and  then,  too,  at 
last  she  found  her  own  haven  in  the  deep  and 
wholesome  love  of  a  strong,  tender  and  simple 
man,  her  father's  curate  ;  she  knew  for  once  the 
full  delight  of  being  needed,  depended  upon,  and 
cherished. 

But  we  cannot  make  a  greater  mistake  than  to 
think  of  Charlotte  Bronte  as  in  any  sense  a  senti- 
mentalist. For  all  her  diffidence  and  ill-health 
and  her  high  dreams  and  visions,  she  had  a  nature 
almost  relentlessly  strong.  There  never  was  any- 
one with  a  more  unflinching  sense  of  duty.  Her 
judgments  of  other  people  are  not  mild  and  in- 
dulgent. She  had  a  scorn  for  all  that  was  base 
and  mean  and  feeble.  She  made  no  excuses  for 
herself  and  she  did  not  excuse  weakness  in  others. 

6i 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

All  the  practical  steps  ever  taken  by  the  house- 
hold were  planned  and  executed  by  her.  When 
she  was  harshly  and  insolently  criticized,  she  was 
not  crushed  by  it ;  her  impulse  was  to  make 
sharp  and  spirited  reply.  She  went  on  with  her 
work  without  fear  or  deference ;  she  made  no 
concessions  or  compromises.  She  was  not  meekly 
religious,  accepting  sorrow  and  defeat  with  mild 
forbearance.  She  looked  upon  life  as  a  probation, 
a  chance  of  learning  great  truths  and  large  experi- 
ences. She  had  a  certain  fear  of  life,  but  she 
looked  it  firmly  in  the  face,  interrogated  it,  defied 
it  to  harm  her,  laid  hands  upon  its  secret.  Like 
/  Jacob  of  old,  she  said  to  the  stern  visitant,  "  I 
>J  will  not  let  thee  go,  until  thou  bless  me."  She 
never  craved  for  flight  or  for  repose.  She  had  a 
sublime  faith  in  God,  believing  that  He  had  set 
her  in  her  place  to  endure,  and  wrestle,  and  to 
say  her  say,  and  she  knew  that  He  would  not 
allow  her  to  be  worsted.  It  is  by  this  wonderful 
union  of  unconquerable  courage  and  passionate 
tenderness  that  »she  has  won  the  affection  and 
worship  of  so  many  hearts,  the  lonely  hearts  that 
suffer  -and  would  fain  be  beloved,  as  well  as  the 
strong  hearts  that  recognize  in  her  a  gallant 
comrade  in  a  stern  battle.  She  is  the  champion 
J  of  strength  in  weakness  as  well  as  of  love  in 
loneliness,  and  the  fame  that  resounds  about  her 
grave  is  but  the  echo   of  gratitude  and  honour 

and  love. 

ARTHUR   C.    BENSON. 

62 


CENTENARY  ADDRESS    AT 
HAWORTH 

By   THK    RIGHT   REV.   BISHOP   WELLDON 

r 


CENTENARY    ADDKESS    AT 
HAWORTH  I 

It  is  with  a  deeply  reverential  feeling  that  I 
have  accepted  the  privilege  of  speaking  a  few 
words,  such  as  may  not,  I  hope,  be  altogether 
unsuitable  to  the  memories  which  cling  around 
this  House  of  God,  in  connection  with  the 
Centenary  year  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  birth. 
She  was  born,  as  you  know,  at  Thornton  on 
April  21,  1816.  She  was  baptized  in  Thornton 
Church  on  June  29th  of  the  same  year.  She 
died  on  March  31,  1855.  Thus  the  associations 
of  living  men  and  women  with  her  life  are 
rapidly  dying,  if  they  are  not  now  almost 
dead.  For  me,  the  last  of  them  was  broken 
by  the  death  of  my  friend,  Miss  Margaret 
Emily  Gaskell,  the  "  Meta "  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  letters,  in  October  1913.  So  long  as 
Miss  Gaskell  lived,  her  house,  so  well  known 
to  the  literary  and  philanthropic  world  of  Man- 
chester, was  the  abiding  link  with  Charlotte 
Bronte.  For  it  was  there  that  Charlotte  Bronte 
'  Delivered  in  Haworth  Parish  Church,  June  17,  1916. 
65  E 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

stayed  on  her  visits  to  Manchester  ;  there  that, 
in  the  stately  and  rather  sombre  drawing-room, 
scarcely  altered  between  her  own  death  and 
Miss  Gaskell's,  she  hid  behind  the  curtains  on 
the  sudden  announcement  of  a  strange  visitor  ; 
there,  too,  that  her  biography  was  written  by 
Mrs.  GaskelJ.  Now,  alas !  that  house  in  Ply- 
mouth Grove  is  closed,  and  the  citizens  of 
Manchester  look  back,  through  an  ever  length- 
ening and  darkening  vista,  to  the  great  names 
of  Mrs.  Gaskell  and  Charlotte  Bronte. 

The  year  1816  may  be  said  to  unite  Charlotte 
Bronte  with  the  great  generation  which  was 
born  in  the  first  and  second  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  was  a  year  memorable 
in  the  achievements  of  literary  genius.  For  in 
that  year — just  one  hundred  years  ago — Scott 
published  The  Antiquary^  Byron  the  third  Canto 
of  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  and  Goethe  the 
first  part  of  his  Italienische  Reise. 

No  student  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  or  her 
sisters'  writings  would,  perhaps,  think  of  placing 
them,  as  equals  or  compeers,  in  the  same  class 
with  these  three  illustrious  authors.  The  sect, 
or  church,  of  the  Bronte-worshippers  is  com- 
paratively small.  But  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  votaries  in  the  history  of  literature 
have  pursued  their  cult  with  more  passionate 
or  pathetic  feelings  than  they — shall  I  not  say 
we  ? — who    gather    in    spirit,     and     to-day     in 

66 


Centenary  Address  at  Haworth 

person,  around  the   graves   of  Charlotte   Bronte 
and  so  many  other  members  of  her  family. 

If  it  be  asked  why  our  feelings  are  so  deep, 
as  though  we  were  mourning,  in  Charlotte 
Bronte  especially,  not  only  a  writer,  however 
bright  she  may  have  shone  in  the  firmament  of 
literature,  but  a  friend  in  whose  life  we  would, 
if  we  might,  claim  a  sympathetic  share,  no  doubt 
the  reason  lies,  to  some  extent,  in  the  mystery, 
I  had  almost  said  the  tragedy,  of  the  Brontes. 
Never,  it  may  be,  has  human  genius  asserted 
itself  so  suddenly  and  surprisingly  as  in  the 
three  daughters  of  the  Reverend  Patrick  Bronte. 
Never  has  such  genius  been  so  suddenly  and  so 
ruthlessly  extinguished  by  the  Angel  of  Death. 
Anne  Bronte  was  twenty-nine  years  of  age  at 
her  death,  Emily  only  thirty  years,  Charlotte, 
the  most  famous  of  all  the  sisters,  only  thirty- 
eight.  Two  other  sisters  there  were — Elizabeth 
and  Maria — who  died,  one  in  the  eleventh,  and 
the  other  in  the  twelfth,  year  of  her  age.  Their 
one  brother — the  unhappy  Branwell — whose  gifts 
were  clouded  by  such  errors  and  failings  as  cast 
a  shadow  upon  his  whole  family,  did  not  live 
beyond  his  thirty-first  year.  Their  mother  died — 
"  departed  to  the  Saviour  "  as  the  inscription  upon 
her  grave  tells — when  her  eldest  child  was  only 
six  years  old.  Their  father  outlived  his  whole 
family,  and,  after  having  been  **  incumbent  of 
Haworth  for   upward   of  forty-one  years,"  died 

6f 


Charlotte  Brontif :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

in   the  eighty-fifth  year   of  his  age — more    than 
six  years  after    his   daughter  Charlotte's  death. 

It  is  the  thought  of  genius  so  prematurely  cut 
off,  as  men  count  days  and  deeds,  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  especially,  that  inspired  Matthew 
Arnold's  well-known  lines  upon  Haworth 
Churchyard. 

Strew  with  laurel  the  grave 
Of  the  early  dying  !     Alas  ! 
Early  she  goes  on  the  path 
To  the  silent  country,  and  leave* 
Half  her  laurels  unwon, 
Dying  too  soon  !     Yet  green 
Laurels  she  had,  and  a  course 
Short,  but  redoubled  by  fame. 

For  of  Charlotte  Bronte  it  was  true — if  1 
may  quote  the  sacred  words — that  she  "  being 
made  perfect  in  a  short  time,  fulfilled  a  long 
time."  "  We  live  in  deeds,  not  years,"  says 
the  author  of  Fe^tuSy  whose  own  centenary  year 
coincides  with  hers ;  he  was  born,  I  think, 
only  one  day  after  her. 

Wc  live  in  deeds,  not  years  ;    in  thoughts,  not  breaths  ; 
In  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a  dial. 
Wc  should  count   time    by   heart-throbs  ;    he  most  lives 
Who  thinks  most,  feels  the  noblest,  and  acts  the  best. 

Yet  was  there  ever  a  home  which  might  have 
seemed    to   be    so    improbable   a   birth-place    of 

68 


Centenary  Address  at  Haworth 

literary  works  destined  to  affect  the  mind  and 
the  heart  of  the  English-speaking  world,  as  the 
Parsonage  of  Haworth  ?  When  I  was  thinking 
of  my  address,  I  could  not  but  recall  the 
confession  of  him  who  was  "  no  prophet, 
neither  a  prophet's  son,"  but  only  "  an  herds- 
man and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit "  ;  yet 
the  Lord  took  him,  "as  he  followed  the 
flock,"  and  bade  him  *'  Go,  prophesy  unto  My 
people  Israel."  It  is  always,  or  often,  in  the 
most  unlikely  places  that  human  genius  lifts 
its  head.  The  three  hundred  years  which  have 
elapsed  since  Shakespeare's  death,  if  they  have 
at  all  drawn  aside  the  veil  which  has  happily 
saved  him  from  much  desecrating  criticism, 
have  only  accentuated  the  contrast  between  his 
parentage,  his  domestic  life,  his  local  and  social 
environments  and  himself.  There  can  be  no 
more  fatal  mistake  on  earth  than  the  prejudice, 
whether  local  or  personal,  which  lies  in  the 
question,  "  Can  there  any  good  thing  come 
out  of  Nazareth.'*"  For  out  of  Nazareth 
came  the  Highest  and  the  Holiest  of  the 
children  of  men,  and  the  lesson  of  His  birth 
illumines  and  ennobles  the  possibilities  of  every 
town  and  every  age  all  the  world  over. 

Still,  it  is  possible  that  the  history  of  human 
literature  affords  no  parallel  to  the  life  of  the 
Brontes  at  Haworth  Parsonage.  The  family 
lived  in  their  little  home,  cut  off  not  only,  at  all 

69 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

times,  from  the  great  world,  but  for  many  weeks 
or  months  from  the  neighbouring  towns  like 
Leeds  or  Bradford,  and  even  from  Keighley. 
They  enjoyed  few  opportunities,  if  indeed  any, 
of  social  and  intellectual  culture.  They  saw  no 
friends,  or  hardly  any  ;  and  until  the  name  of 
Bronte  became  famous,  the  arrival  of  a  passing 
visitor  was  itself  an  event.  Their  daily  walks 
took  them  across  the  bleak  moors.  It  was,  as 
Charlotte  Bronte  herself  said,  **  only  the  brief 
flower-flush  of  August  on  the  heather,  or  the 
rare  sunset-smile  of  June,"  which  came  as  a  relief 
from  the  ever-present  gloom  of  the  moorland. 
Below  their  home,  as  you  see  to-day,  stood  the 
church,  with  the  churchyard,  which  was  possibly 
the  source  of  their  frequent  illnesses,  lying  in 
part  above  it.  The  father  of  the  three  sisters 
and  their  wayward  brother  was  a  recluse.  How 
much  of  their  literary  genius  they  owed  to  him 
it  is  difficult  to  say.  He  too  was,  although  he 
is  not  generally  known  to  have  been,  an  author, 
and  a  poet ;  but  in  his  Cottage  Poems  there 
is  not  perhaps  a  single  stanza  worth  preserving. 
Even  if  Mrs.  Gaskell's  stories  of  his  eccentricity, 
as  shown  by  his  habit  of  carrying  a  loaded  pistol 
with  him  byi  day  and  laying  it  on  his  dressing- 
table  at  night,  are  discarded,  yet  he  was  an  invalid, 
generally  living,  and  even  taking  his  meals,  by 
himself;  and  never  dreaming  of  all  that  was 
going   on,    when  he   had  retired   to  bed,  in  the 

70 


Centenary  Adaress  at  Haiioorth 

little  schoolroom  of  his  house.  Yet  the  story 
of  the  way  in  which  Charlotte  Bronte  revealed 
to  him  the  publication  of  Jane  Eyre  does  not 
forbid  the  thought  of  a  tender  sympathy  between 
father  and  daughter.  The  mother  died,  as  I 
have  said,  when  all  her  children  were  young. 
The  aunt  who  took,  or  tried  to  take,  the 
mother's  place  was  always  pretty  well  a  stranger 
to  her  nephew  and  nieces,  and  she  spent  the  last 
years  of  her  life  very  much  in  her  own  room. 
Nothing  could  well  exceed  the  loneliness  of  their 
days.  Nor  was  it  sensibly  relieved  by  the 
experiences  they  gained,  whether  as  pupils,  or  as 
teachers,  in  schools,  or  in  M.  Heger's  Pensionnat 
at  Brussels.  There  is  a  world  of  meaning  in 
the  note  which  Charlotte  Bronte  appended  to 
her  sister  Anne's  poem,  "  Lines  Written  from 
Home,"  when  she  said,  "  My  sister  Anne  had 
to  taste  the  cup  of  life  as  it  is  mixed  for  the 
class  termed  'Governesses.'"  It  has  been  some- 
times held  that  Mrs.  Gaskell's  well-known  Life 
of  Charlotte  Bronte  conveys  an  overdrawn 
impression  of  deep  sadness.  I  do  not  think 
that  criticism  will  be  passed  by  any  one  who  has 
read  the  Poems  by  Currer^  Ellis^  and  Acton  Bell^ 
or  even  the  later  poems  of  the  three  sisters ; 
for  unless  I  am  wrong,  there  is  among  them 
all  one  poem,  and  one  only,  which  is  not  tinged 
by  the  sombre  hue  of  melancholy.  But  what 
faith,    what    courage    was   theirs !     It   was   little 

71 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

that  they  suffered  the  disappointment  of  seeing 
their  early  manuscripts  tossed  from  publisher  to 
publisher.  That  has  been  the  fate  of  most,  or  of 
many,  authors  who  have  attained  celebrity  in 
letters.  It  is  difficult  indeed  to  escape  the  feeling 
of  astonishment  at  the  blindness  of  so  many 
publishers  to  the  writings  of  unknown  genius. 
Few  however  can  be  the  writers  who,  some 
time  after  the  publication  of  their  book,  have 
learnt  that  the  copies  of  it  which  have  been  sold 
were  only  two.  It  was,  as  is  well  known,  on 
the  very  day  when  Charlotte  Bronte  knew 
the  rejection  of  'The  Professor^  the  day  too 
when  she  was  nursing  her  father  after  the 
operation  upon  his  eyes  at  Manchester,  that  she 
began  the  writing  of  Jane  Eyre. 

I  am  not  called  to  pass  a  literary  judgment 
upon  the  three  sisters,  or  upon  Charlotte,  the 
most  famous  of  them,  to-day.  That  would  be 
the  office  of  another  place  and  another  time 
than  this.  All  that  you  will  ask  of  me  is 
some  brief  estimate  of  the  part  which  religion 
plays  in  the  circumstances  of  her  life.  It  is, 
of  course,  true  that  she  was  spiritually  the  child 
of  the  Church  of  England  and  of  a  clerical 
home  within  that  Church.  She  and  her  sisters 
are  striking  figures  in  the  long  gallery  of  the 
men  and  women  distinguished,  not  only  in 
letters  but  in  all  aspects  of  public  life,  who  have 
been    born    and    bred    in    the    parsonages     and 

72 


A.   B.    NICHOLI.S. 
From' a  photograph  taken  about  1861. 


Centenary  Address  at  Haworth 

manses  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales.  Her 
loyalty  to  her  Church  was  one  source  of  her 
unhappiness  in  the  strictly  Roman  Catholic 
school  to  which  she  was  sent  at  Brussels.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  a  clergyman,  she  was  the 
wife  of  a  clergyman.  It  does  not  seem  that,  from 
first  to  last,  any  doubt  of  Christianity  or  of  her 
own  national  Church  fell  as  a  cloud  upon  her 
sensitive  spirit.  If  she  was  happy  anywhere, 
she  was  happy  in  her  religion. 

God  gave  her  her  genius,  and  she  acknow- 
ledged it  as  His  gift.  Many  blessings  there  are 
which  are  born  of  inheritance  or  environment 
or  education  ;  but  the  greatest  of  gifts,  such  as 
beauty  or  genius,  God  keeps  in  His  own  hands. 
Charlotte  Bronte  cannot  well  have  written 
seriously  when  she  told  her  lifelong  friend, 
Ellen  Nussey,  that  the  text  which  she  quoted 
in  one  of  her  letters,  "  The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth.  Thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof, 
but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh,  nor  whither 
it  goeth,"  was,  she  believed.  Scripture,  though 
in  what  chapter  or  book,  or  whether  it  was 
correctly  quoted,  she"  could  not  possibly  say. 
Whether  she  knew  it  or  not,  it  was  true  of  her 
family  and  herself. 

Every  one  who  has  read  the  story  of  Charlotte 
Bronte  and  her  sisters  is  aware  how  much  they 
owed,  in  their  writings,  to  the  events  and 
experiences    of     their     own     lives.       Few    lives 

71 


Charlotte  Bronte:    a  Centenary  Memorial 

indeed,  so  strangely  limited  as  theirs,  can  have 
afforded  so  much  material  for  literature.  The 
Professor^  Shirley^  Villette^  and  even  Jane 
Eyre  in  its  central  motive,  were  inspired  by 
circumstances  of  her  own  life,  or  circumstances 
which  had  come  to  be  known  to  her  in  her 
life.  It  is  a  curious  tribute  to  the  vivid  effect 
of  her  portraiture  that  she  was  criticized  for 
inaccuracy  in  some  details  of  her  characters,  as 
though  she  had  meant  her  characters  to  be  actual 
photographs  of  real  men  and  women.  But  genius 
is  nowhere  more  clearly  seen  than  in  the  use 
which  it  makes  of  such  incidents  as  common 
humanity  passes  by. 

If  Charlotte  Bronte  owed  much  to  her  own 
life,  most  of  all  did  she  owe  to  its  sadness.  A 
few  months  of  peace  God  granted  her  at  the 
last,  but  the  rest  was  silent  tragedy.  So  great 
a  poet  as  Shelley   has  said  that 

.  .  .  most  wretched  men, 
Arc  cradled  into  poetry  by  wrong, 
They  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach  in  song. 

Charlotte  Bronte  was  not  embittered  by  the 
pains,  the  losses,  and  the  disappointments  of  her 
life.  They  only  quickened  her  insight  and 
her  sympathy.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  if 
she  could  have  written  her  books  with  such 
pathetic  intensity,  if  she  had  not  passed  through 
the  deep  waters  of  affliction. 

74 


Centenary  Address  at  Haworth 

She  was  no  prophet,  nor  was  she,  in  any 
literary  sense,  a  prophet's  daughter,  but  the 
Lord  took  her  as  she  followed  the  flock,  and 
He  bade  her  "  Go,  prophesy  unto  My  people." 
The  charge  of  irreligion  or  immorality  in  her 
writings  may  fall  from  her,  I  think,  unanswered 
and  unheeded,  because  it  is  wholly  undeserved. 
Very  touching  are  the  poems  of  the  three 
sisters  in  their  religious  character.  Emily  was, 
I  believe,  the  truest  poet,  and  the  last  lines 
which  she  ever  wrote  were  quoted  not  long 
ago  by  a  high  living  authority  for  their  sub- 
lime expression  of  an  almost  pantheistic  faith 
in  God. 

Though  earth  and  men   were  gone, 

And  suns  and  universes  ceased  to  be. 

And  Thou  vvert  left  alone, 

Every  existence  would  exist  in  Thee. 

There  is  no  room  for  death, 

Nor  atom  that  his  might  could  render  void  : 

Thou — Thou  art  being  and   breath, 

And  what  Thou  art  may  never  be  destroyed. 

But  more  touching  are  the  last  lines  of  Anne 
Bronte,  who  so  soon  followed  her  sister  Emily 
to  the  grave,  the  lines  which  have  just  been 
sung  in  this  service.  For  they  were  written 
upon  her  deathbed,  and  as  her  sister  Charlotte 
said,  *'  These  lines  written,  the  desk  was  closed, 
the  pen  laid  aside  for  ever." 

75 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

If  Thou   shouldst  bring   me  back  to  life. 

More  humbled  I  should  be  ; 
More  wise,  more  strengthened  for  the  strife, 

More  apt  to  lean  on  Thee. 
Should  death  be  standing  at  the  gate, 

Thus  should  I  keep  my  vow  ; 
But,  Lord,  whatever  be  my  fate, 

O  let  me  serve  Thee  now  ! 


This  is  the  inmost  spirit  of  Charlotte  Bronte 
also.  It  was  understood  by  the  wisest  of  her 
contemporaries.  I  know  not  if  all  her  admirers, 
who  listen  to  me  now,  are  acquainted  with  an 
article  which  Thackeray,  her  own  literary  hero, 
wrote  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  of  April,  i860, 
under  the  title  "  The  Last  Sketch,"  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  fragment,  which  she  left  behind 
her  at  her  death,  of  a  new  novel  to  be  called 
Emma,  It  is  worth  reading,  worth  remembering 
too  ;  for  he  speaks  in  it  of  his  own  brief  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  her,  and  of  the  impres- 
sion which  she  left  upon  his  memory.  "  A 
great  and  holy  reverence  of  right  and  truth," 
he  says,  "  seemed  to  be  with  her  always." 

It  will  be  well  perhaps,  in  this  Centenary  year 
since  her  birth,  to  take  leave  of  her  with  these 
words  of  one  whom  she  so  greatly  admired. 
She  dedicated  to  him,  as  you  know,  the  second 
edition  of  Jane  Eyre.  His  appreciation  of  her 
literary  work  she  valued,  I  think,  above  all 
other  rewards. 

76 


Centenary  Address  at  Haworth 

Yet,  we  cannot  take  leave  of  her,  above  all 
in  the  village  where  she  lived  and  died,  and 
in  this  holy  place  where  she  often  worshipped, 
without  asking  what  her  feelings  would  be  if 
she  were  living  now  in  the  agony  of  an  almost 
world-wide  war.  Certainly  she  would  have  felt 
for  the  great  soldier,  whose  death  has  saddened 
of  late  the  whole  British  Empire,  something  of 
the  admiration  which  she  lavished  upon  the 
Duke  of  Wellington.  Certainly  she  would  have 
honoured  the  gallant  seamen  and  soldiers  who 
have  died  for  their  country  and  their  Empire  in 
the  spirit  of  these  lines  of  hers — not  generally 
known — which  I  am  courteously  permitted  to 
quote. 

Weep  for  the  Dying  Martyr,  weep. 
And  the  soldier,  laid  on  the  battle-plain 

Alone  at  the  close  of  night,  alone. 
The  passing  off  of  some  warlike-strain 

Blent  with  his  latest  moan  ; 
His  thoughts  all  for  his  fatherland, 
His  feeble  heart,  his  unnerved  hand 
Still  quiveringly  upraised  to  wield 
Once  more  his  bright  sword  on  the  field, 
While  wakes  his  fainting  energy 
To  gain  her  yet  one  victory  ; 
As  he  lies  bleeding  cold  and  low, 
A»  life's  red  tide  is  ebbing  slow, 
Lament  for  fallen  bravery. 

For,    alas!    the    world    seems    to    have    become 
all  a  house  of  mourning.     The  stain   of  blood- 

77 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

shed  is  seen  everywhere,  except,  methinks,  upon 
the  lintels  of  the  houses  when  the  Angel  of 
Death  passes  by.  Yet  there  is  comfort,  if  there 
is  sorrow,  in  the  retrospect  of  one  hundred  years. 
When  Charlotte  Bronte  was  born,  the  victory 
of  Waterloo  had  just  been  won.  But  it  would 
be  a  historical  error  to  think  of  that  victory  as 
at  once  inaugurating  an  era  of  national  peace 
and  prosperity.  It  was  in  1816  that  the 
Luddite  agitation  assumed  its  most  threatening 
character.  She  has  herself  told  the  story  of  it 
in  Shirley.  All  over  England  the  evils  of 
scarcity  resulting  from  a  bad  harvest,  of  distress 
in  the  manufacturing  area,  of  commercial  bank- 
ruptcy, of  unemployment,  of  discontent,  and  of 
frequent  rioting,  were  felt  to  be  portents  of  a 
coming  revolution.  They  pointed  the  way  to 
great  social  and  political  reforms,  of  which  she 
herself  lived  to  be  the  witness — such  as  the 
Reform  Act,  Roman  Catholic  Emancipation,  and 
the  Abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws,  But  there  are 
some  endowments  of  human  life  which  rise  above 
all  social  vicissitudes.  One  of  these  is  literature  ; 
another,  I  think,  is  religion.  Charlotte  Bronte, 
amidst  the  troubles  of  her  time,  pursued  her  way 
undeviatingly  to  her  appointed  goal.  She  gave 
herself  to  literature  and  to  love.  Few  among 
men  and  women  can  there  have  been  who  have 
done  less  to  stain  the  chrisoms  of  their  baptism 
than   she.     Yet   like    the    saints,    of  whom   the 

7^ 


Centenary  Address  at  Haworth 

anthem  appointed  for  this  memorial  service  tells, 
she  had  "  come  out  of  great  tribulation,"  she 
had  *'  washed  her  robe  and  made  it  white  in  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb."  "  Therefore  are  they" — and 
she,  as  we  humbly  believe — *'  before  the  throne 
of  God,  and  serve  Him  day  and  night  in  His 
temple  :  and  He  that  sitteth  on  the  throne 
shall  dwell  among  them.  They  shall  hunger  no 
more,  neither  thirst  any  more  ;  neither  shall  the 
sun  light  on  them  nor  any  heat.  For  the  Lamb 
which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed 
them,  and  shall  lead  them  unto  living  fountains 
of  waters  :  and  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears 
from  their  eyes.  ' 

J.   E.   C.    WELLDON. 


79 


CHARLOTTE  BRONTE   IN 
BRUSSELS 

By  m.  h.  spielmann 


CHARLOTTE   BRONTE   IN   BRUSSELS 

During  tie  Charlotte  Bronii  Centenary  lueek  this  Paper  loas  published  in 
The  Time*  Literary  Supplement  {13  April  1916),  and  is  here 
refublishid,  by  permission^  with   numerous   tnundations   and  additions. 

I 

Few  novelists  have  been  so  much  the  outcome 
of  their  surroundings  as  Charlotte  Bronte  ;  few 
have  been  more  autobiographical  under  cover  of 
fiction,  few  have  depended  more  for  their  mise- 
en-sceney  down  to  veriest  details  and  microscopic 
touches,  on  the  localities  adopted  as  the  back- 
ground of  their  plots.  Wherefore  the  game  of 
localizing  places,  streets,  and  houses  mentioned 
in  her  books,  as  also  of  identifying,  tant  bien  que 
tnal^  the  personages  of  her  stories,  has  been 
played  with  rare  enjoyment  by  an  ever-increasing 
body  of  enthusiasts.  The  sport  has  become  a 
cult,  and  Bronte  literature  is  fast  swelling  into 
a  library  of  respectable  dimensions. 

Even  the  most  zealous  of  the  explorers  must 
be  aware  that  whether  Miss  Bronte  meant  to 
reproduce  this  place  or  that  with  absolute 
fidelity,  or  whether  she  was  only  fashioning  the 
characteristics     of     her      backgrounds     into      a 

83 


Charlotte  BrontC :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

sufficiently  convincing  '*  set,"  is  a  matter  of 
minor  interest  and  of  minimum  literary  im- 
portance. But  the  spot  in  which  so  many 
fruitful  months  of  her  life  were  passed — 
inasmuch  as  they  laid  their  impress  so  un- 
mistakably upon  her  art  and  upon  her  character 
and  her  life's  happiness,  tearing  her  heart 
and  awakening  her  soul,  as  appears  again  and 
again  in  her  human  comedy,  vivifying  some  of 
her  most  poignant  scenes  and  prompting  her 
most  trenchant  utterances — this  stands  in  a 
different  category.  Of  this  pregnant  spot,  this 
sheltered  nook,  we  have  had  descriptions  in 
The  Professor  and  in  Villette^  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
luife^  and  in  the  books  of  Mr.  Clement  Shorter, 
Mrs.  Chadwick,  Mrs.  Macdonald,  Mr.  Wroot, 
and  others,  and  we  have  seen  photographs  of 
the  exterior  of  the  school  and  of  the  ancient 
garden  it  embraced.  But  the  whole  budget  ex- 
plains but  incompletely  the  surroundings  wherein 
were  played  out  the  little  life  dramas  of  Paul 
Emanuel  and  Lucy  Snowe,  of  William  Crimsworth 
and  Frances  Henri,  and  at  least  one  palpitating 
scene  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  own  experience,  in 
the  matter  of  the  half  unwitting  and  wholly 
unresponsive  Professor  Constantin  Heger. 

For  that  reason,  a  few  months  before  the  War 
broke  out,  I  presumed  on  friendship  to  beg 
Mademoiselle  Louise  Heger  to  draw  for  me  a 
plan   of  the   school-house   and   the  surrounding 

84 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

premises  where  a  great  part  of  her  life  had  been 
passed,  with  all  the  accuracy  which  her  cultivated 
artist-memory  would  permit.  Her  suggestive 
sketch,  the  result  of  gracious  compliance,  forms 
the  basis  of  the  map  which — with  certain  obvious 
errors  in  scale  and  numerous  details  added — was 
duly  drawn  and  printed,  illustrating  main  build- 
ings, routes,  and  points  of  interest  connected  with 
the  novels  and  with  the  author  herself.  Readers 
may  therefore  realize  henceforward  with  greater 
ease  the  Bronte  theatre  and  the  stage,  and  the 
exits  and  the  entrances  of  the  players. 
Mademoiselle  Heger,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  the  little  Georgette  of  Villette ;  she 
loved  Charlotte  Bronte  as  the  story-child  loved 
Lucy  Snowe  with  a  love  that  was  returned  ;  and 
she  still  bears  Miss  Bronte's  face  and  figure 
clearly  imprinted  on  her  memory. 

Hither,  in  1842,  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte 
brought  his  daughters  Charlotte  and  Emily, 
and  left  the  young  women,  soberly  and  earnestly 
hopeful,  in  the  charge  of  the  motherly  Madame 
Heger  and  her  mercurial  husband  ;  and  hither, 
a  year  later,  worn  out  by  a  trying  journey  in 
foul  weather,  Charlotte  returned  alone,  drawn  by 
an  irresistible  attraction  to  continue  her  schemed- 
out  studies  and  to  pursue  her  teaching. 

When  the  weary  traveller  arrived  in  the  Rue 
d'Isabelle  she  reached  the  nursery  of  her  genius. 
Cradle   assuredly  it  was   not.     Her   genius   had 

85 


Charlotte  Bronte:   a  Centenary  Memorial 

long  since  quickened  in  Haworth,  tended  by 
her  father  in  her  earliest  years.  In  Brussels 
it  was  trained,  developed,  nurtured,  and  directed 
by  M.  Heger,  but  inspired  at  least  as  much  by 
her  own  thought  and  suffering  as  by  her  master's 
care.  It  would  have  blossomed  in  any  case  ;  yet 
but  for  him — apart  from  that  Romance  which  the 
poor  girl's  letters  so  touchingly  and  so  beautifully 
revealed — it  assuredly  would  have  blossomed  into 
a  different  flower,  a  bloom  of  another  growth, 
less  cultivated,  perhaps  less  vivid  in  colour,  less 
rich,  less  sweet,  and  less  pungent  in  its  perfume. 
The  Charlotte  Bronte  we  know  and  honour, 
whose  faculty  was  forced  into  the  particular 
luxuriance  by  which  it  is  recognized  through  her 
experiences  in  the  Pensionnat,  was,  greatly  in 
her  art  and  to  some  degree  in  her  emotion,  the 
product  of  the  Rue  d'Isabelle. 

In  Villettey  then,  Miss  Bronte  pictures  Lucy 
Snowe's  arrival  in  Brussels  much  as  it  occurred 
to  herself  on  her  second  visit.  Now  let  us  follow 
her,  step  by  step — for  the  first  time — to  her 
predestined  home.  "  Having  left  behind  us  the 
miry  Chaussee " — that  is  to  say,  the  Chaussec 
de  Gand — the  diligence  rattled  over  the  pave- 
ment, passed  through  the  Porte  de  Flandre, 
and  stopped  at  the  bureau.  Hence  Dr.  John 
Bretton  courteously  conducted  Miss  Snowe  along 
the  boulevards,  on  foot,  through  darkness,  fog, 
and   rain,    past   the   Alice   Verte — at   that    time 

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Charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

almost  a  civic  pleasaunce,  referred  to  in  The 
Professor^  but  now  an  arid  waste  of  sand  and 
stone,  a  mere  eastern  quay  to  the  Canal  de 
Willebroeck — until  by  the  Rue  Ducale  or  the 
Rue  de  la  Loi  the  north-east  gate  of  the  Park 
was  reached,  and  the  park  "  crossed "  to  an 
opening  into  the  Rue  Royale  opposite  the 
Montagne  du  Pare,  which  descends  to  the  Lower 
Town.  Here  her  guide  left  her,  after  having 
instructed  her  how  to  reach  a  decent  inn  by 
descending  the  Belliard  steps. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  this  would  in 
reality  have  been  too  long  a  walk  ;  but  in  the 
author's  eyes  it  must  have  been  a  mere  ramble, 
for  in  The  Professor  the  newly  affianced  Crims- 
worth  and  Frances  Henri  celebrate  their  engage- 
ment by  making  *'  a  tour  of  the  city  by  the 
Boulevards  " — a  jaunt  of  twice  the  distance  which 
tired  the  lady  but  *'a  little." 

Lucy's  progress  from  this  point  to  the 
Pensionnat  has  created  some  difficulty  in  readers' 
minds,  yet  it  is  clear  enough.  Misunderstanding 
her  instructions,  she  missed  the  Belliard  steps  ' 
to  the  Rue  d'Isabelle,  wherein,  at  its  junction  with 
the  Rue  des  Douze  Apotres  and  the  Rue  de  la 
Chancellerie   was   supposed    to   stand  the  inn  of 

'  The  opening  in  the  Rue  Royale  would  not  reveal  to 
the  passer-by,  particularly  at  night-time,  the  existence  of 
the  Belliard  steps,  because  the  head  of  the  stairway  is  masked 
by  the  pedestal  of  the  General's  statue. 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

which  she  was  in  search,  and  wandered  straight 
on  along  "  the  magnificent  street  and  square  " — 
no  other  than  the  Rue  and  the  Place  Royale — 
passed  the  great  church  (St.  Jacques  sur 
Caudenberg)  until,  turning  along  the  south  side, 
she  was  dismayed  by  being  accosted  by  "  two 
moustachioed  men  who  came  suddenly  from 
behind  the  pillars."     What  pillars  were  these .'' 

The  truth  is  that  at  the  time  when  Miss  Bronte 
was  in  Brussels,  as  is  shown  by  contemporary 
maps,  the  Rue  de  la  Regence  had  not  yet 
pierced  the  side  of  the  square  ;  the  Place  was 
still  shut  in,  and  in  the  middle  of  it  was  a  narrow 
way  flanked  with  pillars  known  as  the  Passage 
des  Colonnes.  It  was  from  this  sinister  recess 
that  the  rascals  emerged  and  talked  to  the 
frightened  young  woman  while  keeping  pace 
with  her.  They  were  moustachioed  villains — 
a  delightfully  feminine  touch,  reminding  us  of 
those  Early  Victorian  days  when  moustaches  and 
beard  were  damning  attributes,  concrete  symbols 
of  the  depravity  natural  to  a  foreigner,  and 
rarely,  save  in  a  few  deplorable  instances,  affected 
by   any   but    the   most    hardened    Englishmen.' 

'  It  may  be  recalled  how,  in  the  'Forties,  the  editor  of 
the  Art  Journal,  shocked  and  incredulous,  declined  to  accept 
as  wholly  true  a  newspaper  report  to  the  effect  that  an  artist, 
"  wearing  a  moustache,"  had  been  arrested  for  some  minor 
misdemeanour  at  Canterbury  and  had  claimed  to  be  an 
Englishman  !    The  outraged  editor,  Mr.  Samuel  Carter  Hall, 

83 


Charlotte  Bronte'  in  Brussels 

What  wonder,  then,  that  these  two  men,  with 
"faces  looking  out  of  the  forest  of  hair, 
moustache,  and  whisker,"  afterwards  turned  out 
to  be  the  very  same  two  evil-minded  dandy  pro- 
fessors of  the  college,  MM.  Rochemort  and  Bois- 
sec  [shockingly  significant  names  —  thoroughly 
appropriate  to  the  hateful  bearers  of  them],  who 
basely  doubted  to  Monsieur  Paul  the  genuineness 
of  Lucy  Snowe's  devoir. 

She  fled — darting  either  along  the  Rue  du 
Musee  and  so  on  down  the  Rue  Ravenstein,  or  by 
the  Montagne  de  la  Cour  and  the  Rue  Ravenstein, 
or  the  Rue  Villa  Hermosa.  In  any  case  she  de- 
scended the  steps  in  which  terminates  either  of  these 
parallel  lanes — mistaking  them  for  the  Belliard 
steps — and  found  herself  in  the  Rue  Terarken. 
Following  the  street  to  the  right  she  walked  on 
into  the  "  Rue  Fossette "  (the  Rue  d'Isabelle), 
and  fetched  up  at  the  Pensionnat  of  Madame 
Beck  opposite  the  foot  of  the  Belliard  stairway. 
Before  this  house  stood  the  faltering  Lucy  Snowe. 
All  idea  of  an  inn,  thanks  to  directing  if  exhaust- 
ing fate,  had  been  renounced,  forgotten ;  she 
pleaded  for  admittance,  and  by  good  fortune 
found  it.     Her  real  life  in  Villette  was  begun. 

These  same  Belliard  steps,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered,   attracted   young    William    Crimsworth  in 

refused  to  believe  that  an  Englishman  and  an  artist  would 
so  debase  himself  as  to  appear  in  public  "  in  the  character 
of  a  French  poodle." 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

The  Professor.  From  the  Rue  Royalc,  oppo- 
site the  spot  occupied  in  the  seventeenth  century 
by  the  Domus  Isabellae — by  the  Sovereign  after 
whom  the  street  below  was  called — he  "  con- 
templated the  statue  of  General  Belliard  "  (due 
to  the:  chisel  of  one  of  the  brothers  Geefs  and 
set  up  very  shortly  before  Charlotte  Bronte's 
arrival)  "  and  then  I  advanced  to  the  top  of  the 
great  staircase  beyond,  and  I  looked  down  into  a 
narrow  back  street,  which  I  afterwards  learned 
was  called  the  Rue  d'Isabelle.  I  well  recollect 
that  my  eye  rested  on  the  green  door  of  a  rather 
large  house  opposite,  where,  on  a  brass  plate,  was 
inscribed,  *  Pensionnat  de  Demoiselles.' "  It  is 
natural  that  one  endowed  with  such  excellent  gift 
of  vision  should  have  described  so  accurately  the 
locality  in  which  he  was  to  play  an  important 
role. 

Thus  by  her  talent  Miss  Bronte  transmogrifies 
and  develops  into  a  dramatic  incident  her  calm 
arrival  in  Villette.  Is  it  certain,  by  the  way, 
that  this  felicitous  rechristening  of  Brussels  was 
from  the  first  the  author's  intention  ?  We  know 
how  she  changed  names  which  she  had  originally 
adopted  and  bettered  them  by  that  change.  We 
know  how  "  The  Master  "  became  "  The  Pro- 
fessor "  ;  and  how  "  Lucy  Snowe "  was  tem- 
porarily altered  into  the  equally  '*  cold  name " 
of  "Lucy  Frost,"  and  then  turned  back  again. 
*'I  should   like   the   alteration   to  be  made  now 

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Charlotte  Brontif  in  Brussels 

throughout  the  MS.,"  she  wrote  to  Mr.  Williams 
at  her  publishers'.  Was  it  perhaps  a  similar 
after-thought  that  caused  her  to  adopt  "  Villette  " 
in  preference  to  a  first  idea  of  "  Choseville  "  ^ 
"  The  carriage-wheels  made  a  tremendous  rattle 
over  the  flinty  Choseville  pavement,"  she  says 
in  chapter  twenty-seven,  retaining,  perhaps  by 
an  oversight,  the  uncorrected  name,  when  Lucy 
Snowe  brings  Ginevra  Fanshawe  back  to  the 
school  and  administers  "a  sound  moral  drubbing" 
on  the  way.  We  remember  that  this  same  flighty 
Ginevra  when  asked  some  months  before  at  what 
place  she  is  going  to  stay,  had  replied,  "  Oh !  at 
— chose^  '* '  ChosCy  however,  I  found  in  this 
instance,  stood  for  Villette,"  says  Lucy.  The 
germ  of  the  idea  may  perhaps  be  here,  revealing 
the  fallible  hand  of  the  careless  retoucher.  But, 
unless  I  am  mistaken,  Charlotte  Bronte  was  not 
the  first  writer  to  use  the  name  "Villette." 

The  aspect  of  the  Rue  d'Isabelle,  now,  alas, 
demolished,  is  well  known,  with  its  school-houses, 
its  loftier  dwelling-house  of  the  Directress,  and 
beyond  the  row  of  eight  cottages  which,  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  housed  members  of 
the  aristocratic  Guild  of  Crossbowmen,  and 
which  now  were  owned  by  the  circumspect 
Madame  Heger  lest  they  should  be  occupied  by 
undesirable  neighbours.  At  the  farthest  end  of 
their  property  was  a  Porte  Monumentale  built  by 
the  Infanta  Isabella  as   a   gateway  to  the  Arba- 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a    Centenary  Memorial 

letricrs'  practice-ground,  but  dismantled  in  1910 
and  removed  by  the  Brussels  municipality  for 
re-erection  at  some  future  time  in  the  Museum. 
Within  stood  the  old  Galerie,  with  its  dated 
sixteenth-century  fire-back,  used  as  a  place  of 
recreation  by  Madame  and  the  pupils.  All  these 
faced  the  Rue  d'Isabelle — called  by  Miss  Bronte 
the  Rue  Fossette,  after  the  Fosse  aux  Chiens 
which  in  more  ancient  days  occupied   the  spot.' 


II 

Facing  the  Belliard  steps,  then,  was  the  main 
doorway  of  the  Directress's  house,  from  the 
lofty  roof  of  which  Monsieur  Heger,  when  a 
youth  taking  his  share  in  the  struggle  in  which 
Belgium  won  her  independence — a  strange  four 
days'  battle  during  which  the  combatants  amiably 
adjourned  for  refreshments — fired  into  the  park. 
This  was  in  1830,  before  he  knew  the  lady 
who  six  years  later  was  to  become  his  wife. 
To  the  right  extended  the  school  buildings — 
three  sides  of  a  square,  with  the  addition  of  a 
cross  "  galerie  "  or  corridor  which  formed  a  quad, 
or  '*  cour."  Opposite  the  windows  of  the  private 
house   was   the   Premiere   Classe — the   classroom 

'  It  should  be  remembered  that  when  the  road  was  con- 
structed in  order  that  the  Archduchess  might  have  a  direct 
private  way  frohi  the  Court  to  Ste.  Gudule,  it  opened  into  the 
space  now  occupied  by  the  Place  Royalc. 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

of  the  highest  form — the  southern  doors  of  which 
led  straight  out  into  the  "  Grand  Berceau,"  and 
the  narrow  continuation  called  the  "  Allee 
Defendue," '  skirting  the  long  parapet  wall 
that  rose  above  the  retaining  wall  of  the  Athenee 
playing-ground  many  feet  below.^  This  is  the 
wall  which  Ginevra's  elegant  and  dapper  lover, 
the  resourceful  Comte  Alfred  de  Hamal,  would 
scale  in  order  to  reach  the  great  acacia-tree. 
This  tree  "shadowed  the  Grand  Berceau  and 
rested  some  of  its  branches  on  the  roof  of  the 
first  classe."  By  climbing  this,  too,  he  reached 
the  "  Grande  Salle,"  and  eventually  the  arms  of 
the  girl  he  wooed,  first  assuming  for  precaution's 
sake  the  habit  of  the  terrible  Dryad,  the  ghostly 
Nun.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  the  tree- 
climbing  performance  was  founded  upon  a  true 
incident,  for  use  has  been  made  of  it  by  both 
sisters — by  Charlotte  here  in  Villette^  and  by 
Emily  in  Wuthering  Heights^  when  Catherine, 
whom  the  maniacal  HeathcliflF  was  keeping 
prisoner,  effected  her  escape.  *'  Luckily,  light- 
ing on  her  mother's  [chamber],  she  got  easily 
out  of  its  lattice,  and  on  to  the  ground,  by  means 

•  "  Through  the  glass  door  [of  the  Premiere  Classe]  and 
the  arching  berceau,  I  commanded  the  deep  vista  of  the 
All^e  Defendue  "  {Villette^  chap,  xxxvi). 

'  Cf.  the  reference  in  The  Professor  to  "a  bare  gravelled 
court,  with  an  enormous  pas  de  giant  in  the  middle,  and 
the  monotonous  walls  and  windows  of  a  boys*  school-house 
round  "  (chap.  vii). 

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Charlotte  BrotttH :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

of  the  fir- tree  close  by."  It  is  unlikely  that 
cither  sister  would  have  plagiarized  from  the 
other,  but  a  circumstance  known  to  both  could 
by  both  be  used. 

In  the  great  arbour,  *'  vast  and  vine-draped," 
known  as  the  Grand  Berceau,  Mme.  Beck 
would  teach  on  summer  afternoons ;  Lucy, 
too,  would  hold  her  class,  and  Monsieur  Paul 
would  do  his  gardening.  Miss  Bronte's  taste  was 
for  the  greater  privacy  of  the  Allee  Defendue, 
the  secluded  branch-tunnelled  alley  forbidden 
to  pupils  because  its  low  wall  flanked  the  Athenee 
boys'  playground  some  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  below. 
She  found  it  a  charming  retreat  for  contemplation, 
and  it  is  the  scene  of  manv  an  incident  alike  in 
Villette  and  The  Professor.  At  its  southern 
extremity  Charlotte  places  the  aged,  half-dead 
pear-tree — the  mighty  patriarch  "  Methuselah  " 
that  stood  sentinel  over  the  nun's  torture-grave 
(as  the  author  invented  it).  In  the  hole  at  its 
root  Lucy  Snowe  buried  her  treasured  letters 
from  Dr.  Bretton,  and  returned  to  it  to 
mourn  her  sad  awakening,  when  she  was  joined 
by  Monsieur  Paul  in  poignant  interview,  and 
with  him  witnessed  yet  again  the  passing  of  the 
Nun.  It  was  here,  too,  that  the  casket  was 
dropped  which  Dr.  Bretton  rushed  in  to  reclaim, 
thrown  from  a  window  of  which  more  must 
presently  be  said ;  and  it  was  from  here  that 
the   love   passage   between    M.  Pelct   and  Mile. 

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charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

Rcuter  rose  to  the  ears  of  Crimsworth  seated  at 
the  lattice  above. 

Below  in  this  \vall,i  and  at  its  foot,  may  still 
be  seen — for  the  destruction  of  this  neighbour- 
hood is  not  yet  so  complete  as  has  been  repre- 
sented— two  doorways  entered  from  the  level 
of  the  Athenee  courtyard  and  playground  below. 
That  nearest  to  "  Methuselah  "  may  be  identified 
with  the  door  of  communication  through  which, 
declared  Monsieur  Paul  to  Lucy  Snowe,  he  made 
secret  entrance  from  the  college  to  the  Pensionnat 
by  way  of  the  tool-shed  in  the  upper  garden — 
the  same  tool-shed  whence  Lucy  brought  slate 
and  mortar  to  set  by  way  of  tombstone  on  her 
letters'  grave.  2 

'  The  parapet  remains,  with  the  coping-stones  clamped 
on,  in  consequence  of  their  having  once  been  shifted  through 
the  hurricane  violence  of  a  storm  such  as  Lucy  Snowe 
describes. 

^  In  my  Notes  on  the  Brontc-Heger  letters  published  in 
The  Times  I  made  the  suggestion  that  the  burying  of  the 
Bretton  letters  as  described  with  such  realistic  detail  by 
Lucy  Snowe  might  have  been  inspired  by  Miss  Bronte  having 
similarly  treated  Professor  C.  Heger's  letters  at  Haworth. 
Thereupon  Mr.  Percy  A.  Fielding  wrote  to  The  Times  to 
point  out  that  he  had  made  the  like  suggestion  to  the  Bronte 
Society  a  few  months  before,  and  drew  attention  to  the 
fact  that  in  her  letters  of  June  15  and  July  30,  1850, 
"  there  is  a  reference  to  certain  re-roofing  operations  that 
were  taking  place  at  Haworth  Parsonage,  and  from  this 
one  may  suppose  that  both  slates  and  material  for  mortar 
were  being  used  on  the  premises."     It  has,  I  believe,  been 

95 


Charlotte  Eront'c  :    a  Ctentenary  Memorial 

Miss  Bronte's  descriptions  of  the  garden  are 
remarkable  in  their  fidelity  to  fact,  and  alleys 
and  plantations  all  aid  the  development  of  the 
story.  Chief  of  all  is  that  "  alley  bordered  by 
enormous  old  fruit  trees  down  the  middle," 
many  times  alluded  to,  in  blossom  and  in  fruit. 
These  trees,  says  Mrs.  Gaskell,  formed  part  of 
the  orchard  that  had  stood  here  even  before 
the  crossbowmen's  day.  Ancient  pear-trees  they 
were,  famed  far  beyond  the  borders  of  Belgium, 
and  visited  by  fructiculturists  from  all  parts  by 
reason  of  their  marvellous  qualities.  They 
yielded  a  rich  seasonal  harvest  that  was  stored 
in  cellars  extending  below  the  Belliard  steps  ; 
and  for  months  in  each  year  they  regaled  the 
inhabitants  of  the  school,  who  numbered  not 
fewer  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  persons  at 
the  time  when  "  little  Georgette  "  had  grown 
to  be  fruit-keeper  and  visited  the  cellars  with 
her  father  to  select  and  fetch  the  accustomed 
dessert. 

Ill 

Here  we  must  introduce  a  new  personage,  a 
new  "  original,"  to  Bronte  readers  and  Bronte 
students.  This  is  no  other  than  Monsieur  Pelet, 
a    leading    character    in    The    Professor.      This 

shown  that  no  such  opportunity  for  letter-burying — so  far 
as  a  tree  is  concerned — ever  offered  itself  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  the  Parsonage.     But  the  moors  ? 

96 


charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

character  seems  to  have  puzzled  every  com- 
mentator. One  of  them  awards  him  the  title-role 
in  the  book.  Some  see  in  him  a  distorted  portrait 
of  M.  Heger,  or  at  least  an  individual  based 
upon  his  personality.  Others  declare  his  school 
"  without  disguise,  the  Athenee "  or  else  place 
it  in  the  Rue  d'Isabelle,  Others,  again,  pro- 
nounce M.  Pelet,  this  Fenchman,  a  figment  of 
the  author's  brain,  and  write  him  down  in  con- 
sequence "  unconvincing,"  and  a  comparative 
failure,  as  might  be  expected  in  a  figure  not 
inspired  by  the  life.  Every  one  of  these  con- 
jectures is  incorrect.  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 
came  nearest  to  the  truth  when  she  recognized 
reality  in  the  portrait,  and  applauded  it  as  "  an 
extremely  clever  sketch."  It  is  strange,  indeed, 
that  the  existence  of  M,  Pelet's  school  should 
have  remained  unsuspected  among  the  students 
who  have  examined  Miss  Bronte's  works  under 
the  literary  microscope,  for  the  bell-ringing 
incident  related  farther  on  affords  the  necessary 
clue. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  M.  Pelet  was  not  only 
drawn  from  life — he  was  depicted  with  startling 
veracity  so  far  as  externals  are  concerned  ;  and 
I  am  assured  by  those  who  knew  him  that  no 
character  in  the  Brussels  chapters  of  the  two 
books  has  been  presented  with  greater  truth  as 
to  appearance  and  style.  M.  Pelet  was  no  other 
than  Monsieur  Lebel,    who  is   still   remembered 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

with  respect  in  Brussels,  where  he  long  resided, 
and  who  towards  the  end,  I  believe,  returned  to 
France.  He  was  the  French  refugee  school- 
master, the  man  distinguished  in  air,  quiet  in 
method,  Parisian  in  characteristics,  suave  and  silky 
in  manner.  Parisian,  indeed,  to  the  finger  tips, 
almost  elegant  in  his  easy  assumption  of  superi- 
ority which  others  were  made  to  feel — he  was 
exactly  as  Charlotte  Bronte  has  presented  him. 

M.  Lebel's  school-house  for  boys  stood  en 
the  north  side  of  the  Rue  Terarken,  beside 
some  of  the  Athenee  buildings.  The  back  of 
it,  partly  veiled  by  tall  shrubs,  was  pierced  by 
a  single  casement  in  a  lower  storey,  whence,  after 
it  had  been  unbearded,  Crimsworth,  now  one 
of  M.  Pelet's  teachers  (and  before  he  had 
developed  into  a  professor  at  the  Athenee  itself), 
looked  into  the  garden  of  the  Pensionnat,  ^  and 
whence,  too,  M.  Paul  Emanuel,  cynical  psycho- 
logist as  he  was,  instructed  by  the  Jesuit  priest, 
the  Pere  Silas,  watched  his  girl  pupils  at  play 
and  at  quarrel,  and  probed  the  phenomena  of 
feminine  character  in  their  persons  and  in  the 
persons,  too,  of  the  several  mistresses,  even 
of  the  Directress  herself :  for  which  purpose, 
indeed,  he  had  hired  it.  If  Miss  Bronte  brings 
out  this  point,  is  it  not  to  show  that  the  building 

^  "  I  shall  now  at  last  see  the  mysterious  garden  :  I  shall 
gaze  both  on  the  angels  and  their  Eden"  {Tht  Professor ^ 
chap.  viii). 

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charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

could  not  have  belonged  to  the  x-Vthenee,  other- 
wise the  leading  professor  of  that  Royal  college 
would  have  taken  possession  of  this  post  of 
observation  as  by  right  of  privilege  and  not  of 
leasehold  ?  It  was,  as  we  are  told  in  Villette, 
merely  a  "  boarding-house  of  the  neighbouring 
college,  and  not  the  Athenee  itself."  From  an 
"  attic  loophole  high  up,  opening  from  the 
sleeping-room "  of  a  servant,  there  dropped  the 
casket  intended  for  Ginevra  but  delivered  by 
fate  into  the  hands  of  Lucy  Snowe. 

M.  Lebel  does  not  reappear  in  Villette.  The 
author  had  used  him  up  in  her  earlier  picture  of 
Brussels  life.  She  had  done  with  him  and  he 
had  no  part  in  the  new  drama  of  which  M. 
Paul  was  the  hero  ;  there  was  no  room  for  two 
college  directors  here. 

IV 

To  the  west  of  the  Pensionnat  of  the  Rue 
d'Isabelle  stood  the  Athenee  Roy  ale,  on  a  level 
considerably  lower.  Its  buildings,  especially  at 
their  northern  extremity,  came  in  contact  with 
the  Heger  School,  but  the  only  material  and  social 
link  between  the  two  establishments  was  the 
common  well,  still  to  be  seen  ruined  and 
uncovered.  Indeed,  laid  waste  though  the  site 
now  is — for  the  Athenee  has  long  since  been 
removed    to    the    Rue    du    Chene    and   its   old 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

buildings  have  been  razed — almost  unrecog- 
nizable as  is  the  quarter  by  reason  of  wholesale 
demolition  and  vast  roadway  construction,  we 
can  at  this  very  moment  trace  a  good  many  of 
the  old  landmarks.  In  the  retaining-wall  there 
still  remain  the  two  large  niches  which  accommo- 
dated the  Professor  on  his  estrade — one  at  each 
end.  One  of  these  is  beside  the  old  well,  to  the 
north  of  it ;  the  other  is  where,  at  the  southern 
extremity,  we  recognize  the  site  of  a  demolished 
class-room. 

Such  was  the  island  of  garden  and  buildings 
which  daily  met  the  eyes  of  Charlotte  Bronte 
as  the  reflective,  contemplative  English  girl  trod 
the  paths  or  took  refuge  for  recueillement  in  her 
small  berceau  or  in  the  allee  dif endue.  It  was  here 
that  she  evolved  her  thoughts  and  meditations  : 
in  the  classroom  she  learned  how  to  form,  to 
order,  and  to  express  them.  It  was  truly  the 
nursery  of  her  genius,  where  she  was  taught  that 
nothing  is  too  insignificant  for  treatment  in 
literary  expression.  Thus  the  natural  acuteness 
of  her  observation  was  sharpened ;  she  missed 
little  or  nothing  ;  she  acquired  the  power 
of  taking  literary  advantage  of  even  the  most 
trivial  incidents  and  utilizing  them  with  curious 
effect. 

Here  are  two  examples,  which  will  be  new  to 
the  reader,  still  spoken  of  in  the  Heger  and  the 
Errera  families. 

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charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

At  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Royale  and  the 
opening  to  the  BelJIard  steps  stands  the  splendid 
mansion  formerly  occupied  by  the  well-known 
banker,  M.  Errera,  now  belonging  to  his  widow. 
It  is  noteworthy  enough  in  its  exterior  aspect, 
but  exceptionally  beautiful  within,  exquisitely 
designed,  and  famous  for  its  occupation  by  the 
Napoleonic  chief  during  the  French  ascendancy 
in  Brussels.  The  basement  of  it  was  on  a  level 
with  an  upper  floor  of  the  Pensionnat  Heger 
and  separated  from  it  but  by  the  width  of  the 
street  and  the  houses  on  its  hither  side.  In 
this  basement  during  the  absence  of  the  family 
one  of  the  footmen  would  frequently  exercise 
his  exceptional  talent  on  the  French  horn. 
This  trivial  circumstance,  always  remembered  in 
the  Heger  household,  was  utilized  by  Miss 
Bronte  with  much  effect  in  The  Professor^ 
without,  of  course,  revealing  its  very  domestic 
source  : — "Here  a  strain  of  music  stole  in  upon 
my  monologue,"  says  Crimsworth,  "  and  sus- 
pended it  ;  it  was  a  bugle,  very  skilfully  played, 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  park,  I  thought, 
or  on  the  Place  Royale.  .  .  .  The  strain  retreated, 
its  sound  waxed  fainter  and  fainter,  and  was 
soon  gone  ;  my  ear  prepared  to  repose  on  the 
absolute  hush  of  midnight  once  more."  And 
when  he  listened  again  it  was  the  love-talk  of 
Mile.  Reuter  and  M.  Pelet  of  which  he  was 
the  unwilling  auditor. 

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Charlotte  Bronte':    a   Centenary  Memorial 

The  bell-ringing  incident,  again,  as  has  already 
been  said,  has  its  importance  : — 

At  the  conclusion  of  Crimsworth's  first  lesson 
at  Mile.  Reuter's  pensionnat^  "  a  bell  clanging 
out  in  the  yard  announced  the  moment  for  the 
cessation  of  school  labours.  I  heard  our  own 
bell  at  the  same  time,  and  that  of  a  certain 
public  college  immediately  after "  ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  first  bell  sounded  was  at  Mile.  Reuter's 
in  the  Rue  d'Isabelle  ;  the  second  was  at 
M.  Pelet's,  where  Crimsworth  was  in  residence  ; 
and  the  third  at  the  Athenee  Royale — the  usual 
order.  Later  on,  the  incipient  flirtation  between 
Mile.  Reuter  and  her  young  English  professor 
Crimsworth  is  broken  short  by  the  dinner-bell 
which  rang  out  "  both  at  her  house  and  M. 
Pelet's." 


Beyond  these  immediate  confines  we  may  note 
the  historic  Maison  Ravenstein  ;  next,  the  former 
Court  Chapel  hard  by  the  entrance  to  the  present 
Musee  Moderne,'  where  Crimsworth  sought  for 
his  lost  Frances  Henri  ;  the  Palais  des  Academies, 
which  seems  to  be  indicated  as  the  scene  of  the 
Athenee  prize-giving,    where  the  little  finale   of 

'  Here  are  held  the  Art  Exhibitions  which  Lucy  Snowe 
criticized  with  such  clear  and  just  perception.  Her  views  on 
art  were  marked  by  freedom  and  sanity  unusual  in  Early 
Victorian  days,  especially  in  the  provinces. 

1 02 


charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

M.  Paul's  "  quen  dites-vous  F ''  to  Lucy  Snowe 
after  his  lecture  is  a  little  maliciously  adapted 
from  Thackeray's  similar  question  to  Miss  Bronte 
after  his  own  address.  And  in  the  Rue  Royale 
stood  the  old  Hotel  Mengelle  (formerly  a  great 
apartment-house  and  now  rebuilt  into  a  modern 
hotel  of  the  smartest  and  most  elegant  order) 
which  Bronte  critics  by  common  consent  aver  is 
identical  with  a  house  of  importance  in  the  story 
— the  Hotel  Crecy  of  the  Rue  Crecy. 

In  this   view,  when   all   the  circumstances  are 
taken  into  account,  it  is  impossible  to  acquiesce. 

Those  who  have  been  familiar  with  the  old 
Hotel  Mengelle,  and  who  retain  a  clear  recollec- 
tion of  its  construction,  its  general  aspect  and 
architecture,  cannot,  surely,  recognize  in  it  "  the 
sumptuous  Hotel  Crecy,"  where  lived  the  little 
Countess  Paulina  de  Bassompierre  with  her  father, 
even  though  every  allowance  be  made  for  some 
decline  from  pristine  splendour.  When  Ginevra 
Fanshawe  elopes  with  the  Comte  de  Hamal  and 
their  carriage  dashes  northwards  (as  is  demon- 
strable) along  the  Rue  des  Douze  Apotres,  we 
are  told  that  "  neither  the  Hotel  Crecy  nor  the 
Chateau  de  la  Terrasse  lies  in  that  direction." 
This  could  not  be  said  of  the  Hotel  Mengelle 
in  the  Rue  Royale.  Moreover,  we  are  told  as 
well  of  a  Boulevard  de  Crecy  with  its  Carmelite 
convent^  and  of  a  Porte  de  Crecy,  all  details  of 
matter-of-fact     topography.       Where,    then,    are 

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charlotte  Bront? :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

these  ?  What  is  there  to  correspond  with 
them  ?  The  answer  is  clear,  and  should,  I  think, 
be  final. 

The  in-dwellers  of  Brussels  will  tell  you — 
what  Charlotte  Bronte  practically  tells  us  her- 
self— that  the  most  probable  solution  of  the  puzzle 
(a  solution  to  satisfy  every  point  raised)  is  to  be 
found  not  in  the  Rue  Royaie  at  all,  but  in  the 
Boulevard  de  Waterloo  with  its  occasional  fine 
houses,  its  Petits  Carmes  convent  and  its  Eglise 
des  Carmes,  the  Porte  de  Hal,  and,  opposite  to 
it,  the  Chaussee  de  Waterloo,  which  led  towards 
the  picturesque  outskirts  a  mile  and  more  away 
that  might  well  provide  the  locale  of  the  Bret- 
tons'  home,  "  La  Terrasse."  Here,  then,  you 
have  the  Boulevard,  the  town  gate,  the 
Carmelite  convent,  and  the  direction  all  as 
indicated.  Moreover,  in  the  Rue  Crecy  Lucy 
Snowe  takes  her  German  lessons.  Would 
honest  Fraulein  Anna  Braun  have  found  lodg- 
ment in  the  '*  palatial "  Rue  Royaie  ?  And 
to  reach  it  would  Lucy  and  Paulina  have  taken 
the  "  nearest  way "  by  the  Place  Royaie  and 
entered  the  park  ?  The  reiteration  of  the  name 
should  be  some  indication.  What  is  more  im- 
portant is  the  close  connexion  of  idea  between 
the  two  epoch-making  victories,  Crecy  and 
Waterloo,  Mrs.  Gaskell  tells  us  that  Charlotte 
"  worshipped  the  Duke  of  Wellington,"  that  the 
Duke    "  had    been    her    hero    from    childhood." 

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Charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

Her  admirable  devoir^  "Sur  la  mort  de  Napo- 
leon," we  remember,  contained  a  passionate  yet 
reasoned  eulogy  on  the  victor  at  the  expense  of 
the  fallen  Emperor.  Charlotte  Bronte's  relative 
silence  on  the  subject,  alike  in  her  letters  and  in  her 
novels,  has  been  the  subject  of  remark  ;  here,  at 
least,  is  reason  to  believe  that  she  had  Waterloo 
in  her  mind — she  who  had  lived  so  long  close  to 
the  battlefield  where  the  struggle  was  fought  out 
the  year  before  she  was  born — but  was  debarred 
by  her  scheme  of  pseudonymity  from  mentioning 
it  by  name.  So  Crecy  became  an  irreproachable 
substitute,  offering  a  mystery  not  too  obscure  for 
solution.  At  the  time  when  Villette  was  being 
written  the  Duke  was  sinking,  and  died  in 
September  1852  :  the  event  may  likely  enough 
have  given  a  turn  to  the  author's  thoughts  and 
influenced  her  choice  of  venue.  Surely,  as  to  the 
identity  of  the  Boulevard  de  Waterloo,  the  Car- 
melite convent  should  settle  the  matter  definitely. 
Within  the  space  of  a  few  hundred  square 
yards,  with  her  mind's  eye  manifestly  fixed  upon 
a  map  such  as  has  since  been  devised  and  pub- 
lished. Miss  Bronte  could  depict  a  scene  as 
brilliant  and  varied  as  that  of  the  Patriotic  Fdte 
in  the  park  and  build  up  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant and  significant  chapters  in  the  book,  all 
the  while  accounting  to  herself  for  every  step 
taken  by  the  narrator.  By  the  Rue  Terarken, 
up  the  steps   of  the  Rue  Villa  Hermosa,  across 

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charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

the  Place  Royale  walks  Lucy  Snowe,  and,  passing 
through  the  gate  opposite  the  Hotel  Bellevue  (the 
frontage  of  the  hostelry  pitted  with  bullet-holes), 
she  enters  the  park — then  and  for  some  years  later 
surrounded  by  a  mere  palisade  and  not  by  its 
present  imposing  iron  railing.  Her  passage  from 
spot  to  spot  is  described  too  clearly  to  be  mistaken. 
She  seeks  to  wend  her  way  to  one  of  the  two 
*'  stone  basins,"  with  its  clear  green  water — pro- 
bably the  one  nearer  to  the  Royal  Palace  ;  and 
she  is  here  recognized  by  M.  Miret — a  genuine 
character,  by  the  way,  sketched  with  great 
accuracy  from  the  excellent  bookseller  to  the 
Pensionnat  Heger.  She  passes  along  the  alleys, 
wanders  to  the  "green  knoll" — the  raised  ground 
crowned  by  a  seat  which  was  shadowed  by  "  three 
fine  tall  trees  growing  close  " — the  spot  where 
the  "secret  junta"  unwittingly  reveals  to  the 
listening  Lucy  the  answer  to  the  riddle  hitherto 
unsolvable.  Then  she  quits  the  park,  descends 
the  dimly  lighted  Montagne  du  Pare  ^  ("  only 
one  street  lies  between  me  and  the  Rue 
Fossette " — necessarily  the  Rue  des  Douze 
Apotres  and  no  other),  when  the  eloping  Ginevra 
thunders  past,  as  already  recounted  ;  and  so  home 
— to  find  the  Nun's  "ghost"  deposited  in  her 
bed. 

'  Where  lived  the  priest  of  Ste.  Gudule  to  whom  Miss 
Brontf  confessed.  This  presumably  should  be  the  Rue  des 
Mages  of  Vilktte — a  set-ofF  to  the  real  Rue  des  Minimes. 

io6 


charlotte  Brontl'  in  Brussels 

This  is  but  a  type  of  Charlotte  Bronte's 
method,  and  it  may  suffice.  Thus  did  she  work 
up  her  backgrounds  and  plan  her  goings  and 
comings,  lavishing  upon  them  as  much  care  and 
deliberation  as  upon  the  stories  she  constructed 
and  set  against  them.  The  method  is  sound  in 
relation  to  her  talent,  for  while  it  imparts  to 
her  incidents  an  aspect  of  stereoscopic  relief,  her 
art  subdues  the  over-insistence  on  the  cold  fact 
of  the  decor,  so  that  the  reality  which  is  evolved 
grips  us  as  a  quietly  convincing  truth. 

VI 

Later  inquirers  have  not  always  understood 
that  the  premises  in  the  Rue  d'Isabelle  were  not 
left  unchanged  after  the  Bronte  sisters'  departure. 
In  1857  important  alterations  were  effected  in 
the  dwelling-house,  but  the  school-house  was 
left  pretty  much  as  it  was.  The  institution  had 
already  become  a  place  of  pilgrimage  to  both 
English  and  Americans.  The  devotees  who 
could  scarcely  have  been  very  welcome  to  the 
misrepresented  and  injured  chiefs  of  the  school, 
were  courteously  received,  notwithstanding,  and 
shown  all  the  points  of  interest  concentrated  in 
Charlotte  Bronte's  pages.  *'  And  this,"  they 
would  ask,  "  is  this  really  the  Carre  ? — this  the 
Refectoire  .?  " — or  what  not  ;  and  then  some- 
times a  whitening  head  would  thrus^  itself  forth 

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charlotte  Bront? :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

from  a  suddenly  opened  door  and  snap  out,  but 
not  angrily,  "  Oiii ! — et  mot  je  suis  Monsieur 
Paul  !  " 

And  now,  where  this  busy  little  world  that 
hummed  with  life  in  the  educational  centre  of 
the  Rue  d'Isabelle  and  helped  to  form  and 
develop  characters  which  have  stood  the  test  in 
these  later  days  of  trial  is  a  scene  of  cruel 
desolation.  Houses  and  school  buildings  have 
gone.  Rubble  strews  the  ground,  and  a  broken 
branch,  thrusting  its  torn  limb  through  the 
rubbish  here  and  there,  is  all  that  is  left  of  the 
historic  garden.  Yet  the  destruction,  as  has  here 
been  said,  is  not  entirely  complete,  and  (where 
the  encroachments  of  the  vast  new  works  have 
not  wholly  covered  up  or  overturned  it)  suffi- 
cient evidence  still  remains  for  the  practised 
explorer  to  reconstitute,  in  part  at  least,  the  old 
flourishing  institutions  and  buildings  that  clustered 
round  the  spot.  Even  the  first  out  of  the 
four  flights  of  steps  of  the  Escalier  Belliard  may 
yet  be  seen,  though  they,  too,  are  to  be  swal- 
lowed up,  as  soon  as  may  be,  when  peace  returns 
to  heroic  Belgium,  by  the  rising  road  mount- 
ing to  the  Rue  Royale.  A  pictorial  record  of 
some  fullness  will  doubtless  one  day  be  issued 
illustrating  the  temporary  home  of  the  honoured 
sisters,  for  the  material  for  it  exists.  Bronte- 
H*eger-land  is  not  destined  to  pass  unpictured 
and   forgotten  ;    its  scenes   will    live    for  us  and 

1 08 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Brussels 

bring  nearer  to  us  the    more  tutored    genius  of 

Charlotte    Bronte,   to    whom,    on    the    centenary 

of  her  birth,  the  tribute  of  our  homage  is  paid 

to-day. 

M    H.   SPIELMJNN. 


109 


Cf)e  iHfeses  ^Bronte's  establishment 


FOR 


^W^'^'Mmh---- Am):-  v'muiA'MmT'^P 


OF   A    LIMITED    NUMBER    OF 

THE  PARSONAGE,  HA  WORTH, 

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STctms. 

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(FACSIMILE  OF   A   CIRCULAR    ISSUKU   BY   THE   BRONXi':   SISTERS   IN    1844. 


To  face  p.  no. 


THE    BRONTE    SOCIETY    AND    ITS 
WORK 

By  HERBERT   E.   WROOT 


THE   BRONTE   SOCIETY    AND   ITS 
WORK 

In  the  early  days  of  this  Great  War,  when  no 
one  had  thought  for  literary  anniversaries,  there 
passed  unnoticed  the  twenty-first  birthday  of 
the  Bronte  Society.  It  is  a  rare  event  in  literary 
history  for  such  an  association  to  attain  to  its 
**  coming  of  age."  The  mortality  of  infancy 
and  adolescence  is  high  among  literary  societies  ; 
or  perhaps  it  should  be  considered  that  since, 
like  the  "  flies  of  latter  spring,"  they  come  fully 
equipped  and  in  the  maxim  of  energy  into  their 
little  world,  it  is  but  the  course  of  nature  that 
their  days  are  short.     They 


lay  their  eggs,  and  sting  and  sing, 
/eave  their  pretty  cells  and  die. 


And  weave 

A  good  many  societies  have  been  founded  in 
England  with  purpose  akin  to  that  of  the 
Bronte  Society,  with  very  diverse  fields  to  cul- 
tivate, yet  only  one — the  Chaucer  Society — has 
attained    to  such  length  of   years  ;    and   in   that 

113  H 


charlotte  Bronte:    a   Centenary  Memorial 

case,  brilliantly  exceptional,  the  longevity  of  the 
society  was  rather  evidence  of  the  inexhaustible 
youthfulness  of  its  founder  and  vital  spirit,  the 
late  Dr.  Furnivall,  than  of  its  own  inherent 
virility.  With  good  reason  Furnivall  called  it 
"  my  Chaucer  Society,"  and  it  endured  and 
laboured  nearly  thirty  years  in  the  strength  of 
his  will,  till  he  permitted  it  to  sing  its  Nunc 
dimittis  over  the  great  Oxford  edition  of  the 
"  master  dear  and  father  reverent  "  of  English 
poets,  the  production  of  which  its  studies  had 
rendered  possible. 

Even  though  they  had  an  inexhaustible 
mountain  in  which  to  quarry,  the  two  Shake- 
spere  Societies  fell  far  short  of  this  record. 
The  original  society,  sustained  by  the  industry 
of  Halliwell-Phillipps  and  the  enthusiasm — the 
somewhat  intemperate  enthusiasm,  as  was  un- 
happily proved — of  John  Payne  Collier,  lasted 
from  1 84 1  to  1853.  The  New  Shakesperc 
Society,  another  of  Dr.  Furnivall's  literary 
children,  strong  in  purpose,  prolonged  its  exist- 
ence to  some  eighteen  years,  yet  was  its  strength 
labour  and  sorrow  ere  it  was  "  cut  off."  Other 
co-operative  efforts  of  literature  have  all  been 
comparatively  transient.  The  Wordsworth 
Society  endured  as  *'  a  bond  of  union  amongst 
those  who  are  in  sympathy  with  the  general 
teaching  and'  spirit  of  Wordsworth "  for  not 
quite  six  years  ;  and,  whether  it   be  true  or  not, 

114 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

as  Dean  Church  grumbled,  that  "  Words- 
worthians "  fared  rather  badly  at  the  hands  of 
the  Wordsworth  Society,  the  sympathetic  souls 
had  dwindled  to  the  secretary  and  another — 
the  industrious  Professor  Knight  and  one  patient 
committee-man — before  the  Society  made  up  its 
mind  that  Grasmere  and  the  mountains  consti- 
tuted, after  all,  a  stronger  and  more  enduring 
bond  of  union.  The  Shelley  Society  fared  even 
worse.  It  was  late  in  the  field.  The  name  of 
Shelley  had,  as  Lord  Houghton  exulted,  been 
already  raised  by  the  youth  of  Oxford  from 
"  the  obscurity  and  even  the  infamy "  which 
had  attached  to  it  in  earlier  days,  and  there  was 
not  much  work  to  do.  The  society  survived, 
however,  long  enough  to  consecrate,  under  the 
leadership  of  Tennyson,  a  library  as  memorial 
and  shrine  at  the  poet's  birthplace  at  Horsham, 
but  otherwise  left  little  mark  in  history.  The 
Browning  Society  existed  but  a  dozen  years — 
from  1 88 1  to  1893.  Perhaps  some  local  Brown- 
ing Societies  less  fatally  authoritative  attained  to 
a  mellower  age  in  different  parts  of  the  country 
— their  number  was  at  one  time  considerable  ; 
but  it  is  sad  to  remember  that  the  young  ladies 
of  Girton  exhausted  Browning — or  themselves — 
even  during  the  poet's  lifetime.  In  i886  they 
dissolved  their  Browning  Society,  and  by  vote 
of  the  members  spent  the  accumulated  balance 
of  funds  upon  chocolates.     To  some  poets  such 

115 


Charlotte  Bront'e  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

desertion  of  high  intellectuality  for  the  sensuous 
pleasures  which  cloy  (and  spoil  the  digestion) 
might  have  been  as  heart-breaking  as  a  Qjuarterly 
Review  attack.  But  Browning  had  a  sense  of 
humour.  How  his  eyes  must  have  twinkled ! 
Perhaps  some  day  some  philosophic  bookworm, 
some  twentieth-century  Isaac  D'Israeli,  sym- 
pathetic with  the  calamities  which  beset  litera- 
ture on  its  co-operative  and  corporate  side  as  well 
as  in  its  individualistic  aspect,  will  set  himself  to 

find  out  the  cause  of  this  effect, 
Or  rather  say  the  cause  of"  this  detect. 
For  this  effect  defective  comes  by  cause. 

Unless  in  these  latter  days  the  art  of  keeping 
a  diary  has  become  as  atrophied  as  the  art  of 
writing  letters,  there  ought  to  be  on  record 
somewhere,  and  well  worthy  of  collection,  much 
pungent  anecdotage  concerning  literary  associa- 
tions. Meanwhile,  perhaps  no  one  has  come 
closer  to  an  analysis  of  the  centrifugal  forces 
which  disperse  such  organizations  than  Mr. 
Max  Beerbohm,  whose  caustic  caricature  of 
"  Mr.  Browning  taking  tea  with  the  Browning 
Society  "  needs  no  single  word  of  comment. 

No  imagination,  even  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm's 
own,  has  risen  to  the  conception  of  Charlotte 
or  Emily  or  Anne  Bronte  serving  tea  at  Ha  worth 
Parsonage  to  the  members  of  the  Bronte  Society. 

ii6 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

Emily  would  have  resented  the  intrusion,  but 
of  Charlotte  one  is  not  so  sure.  Though 
Charlotte  confessed  to  a  cold  sweat  when 
Martha  Brown,  the  Parsonage  servant — who 
was  promptly  snubbed — proclaimed  her  discovery 
that  the  mistress  had  "  been  and  written  the 
grandest  books  that  ever  were  seen "  and  inti- 
mated that  a  meeting  was  to  be  held  at  the 
Mechanics'  Institute  to  settle  about  ordering 
them,  one  can  hardly  doubt  that  she  would 
have  faced  the  situation  with  the  calm  courage 
with  which  she  administered  a  "comfortable 
cup  of  tea "  to  Mr,  Donne — the  curate  of 
Shirley^  who  did  not  like  Yorkshire  folk — while 
she  sat  on  guard,  ready  at  a  moment's  notice 
to  *'  have  it  out  with  him."  But  the  right  to 
existence  of  such  a  society  is  not  the  attitude 
in  which  we  may  fancy  it  confronted  by  the 
author  it  studies,  but  its  usefulness  in  its  own 
day.  "It  is  for  my  generation  and  myself 
that  I  want  the  Society  in  being,"  said  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Browning  Society  at  its 
inauguration  ;  and  every  lover  of  the  works  of 
the  Brontes,  and  every  reader  whose  heart  has 
been  touched  and  quickened  at  the  story  of  the 
Brontes,  has  had  reason  to  congratulate  himself 
and  his  generation  that  the  work  of  the  Bronte 
Society  has  been  carried  forward  with  so  much 
enthusiasm  and  industry  during  these  twenty-one 
years. 

117 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

The  Bronte  Society  had  its  origin  in  a  con- 
versation which  took  place  towards  the  end 
of  the  year  1893  in  the  private  office  of 
Mr.  Butler  Wood,  the  chief  librarian  of  the 
Bradford  Public  Libraries.  The  incident  is 
unrecorded  in  the  archives  of  the  Society,  but 
Mr.  Wood's  memory  is  that  there  took  part  in 
it  Mr.  J.  Horsfall  Turner,  of  Idle,  near 
Bradford,  Mr.  W.  W.  Yates,  of  Dewsbury, 
and  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  John  Brigg,  M.P.,  of 
Kildwick. 

The  first  suggestion  came  from  Mr.  Horsfall 
Turner.  Mr.  Horsfall  Turner  was  an  anti- 
quary of  rare  energy,  who  has  left  in  our  libraries 
a  whole  shelf-ful  of  memorials  of  his  enter- 
prise. The  Bronte  episode  he  took  almost  in 
his  stride  from  Saxon  charters  to  modern  politics 
of  a  characteristically  vigorous  idiosyncrasy.  But 
Charlotte  Bronte  was  nevertheless  a  particular 
interest  of  his,  and  enjoying  as  he  did  excep- 
tional advantages  at  one  period  of  his  life, 
through  his  friendship  with  Miss  Ellen  Nussey — 
Charlotte's  lifelong  friend  and  confidant — he 
demonstrated  the  depth  of  his  enthusiasm  by 
preparing  and  printing  in  their  entirety  that 
precious  series  of  letters  which  Miss  Nussey 
had  the  prescience  to  preserve.  Unluckily  for 
himself,  Mr.  Turner's  enterprise  took  insuffi- 
cient  account   of   the   trammels   of    the   law   of 

ii8 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

copyright,  and  the  whole  edition  printed  had 
to  be  destroyed.  So  that  a  copy  of  Mr.  Horsfall 
Turner's  Story  of  the  Brontes  is  now  among  the 
rarest  of  bibliographical  curiosities.  It  was,  how- 
ever, a  literary  calamity  modified  by  some  con- 
solation, for  the  suppression  left  the  field  clear 
for  the  fuller  collection  of  the  Bronte  letters 
to  many  correspondents  which  in  due  season 
Mr.  Clement  Shorter  gave  to  us  in  his  two 
fine  volumes.  The  Brontes :  Life  and  Letters. 
And  those  readers  who  cherish  the  format  as 
well  as  the  matter  of  a  book  will  congratulate 
themselves  that  they  have  in  Mr.  Shorter's  fair 
print  and  paper  books  worthy  of  the  story 
they  tell.  Mr.  Turner's  books  unfortunately 
revealed  him  as  austerely  Puritan  in  artistic 
matters  as  the  seventeenth-century  divines  who 
— beside  the  Brontes — were  his  literary  heroes. 
Mr.  Turner's  original  conception  for  a  Bronte 
Club — as  he  called  it — was  strictly  utilitarian, 
and  was  free  of  any  tinge  of  what  critics  of 
the  Browning  Society  reproved  as  idolatry. 
He  proposed  a  small  body  strictly  limited  in 
numbers,  and  in  the  main  composed  of  those 
who  had  written  on  the  Brontes — headed,  as 
he  hoped,  by  Mr.  Swinburne,  Mr.  Birrell,  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen,  and  Sir  Wemyss  Reid ;  and  the 
programme  of  work  which  he  projected  was 
mainly  the  preparation  of  a  complete  and 
exhaustive     bibliography    of     Bronte    literature, 

U9 


Charlotte  Bronte:    a  Centenary  Memorial 

and  as  a  secondary  object  the  preservation  of 
such  traditions  of  the  Brontes  as  might  still  be 
current  in  the  dales  and  moorlands  of  the 
Worth  valley. 

Mr,  Butler  Wood  accords  the  credit  for  the 
wider  lines  upon  which  the  idea  developed  to 
Mr.  Yates,  though  it  may  be  suspected  that 
his  own  literary  tastes  had  something  to  do 
with  the  matter.  Mr.  Yates  attached  great 
weight  to  the  personal  traditions  yet  to  be 
collected.  His  keen  devotion  to  his  own  town 
of  Dewsbury  made  the  Bronte  episode  in  a 
sense  a  chapter  of  the  local  history,  since  it 
was  as  curate  of  the  church  of  that  ancient 
parish  that  the  father  of  the  .Brontes  first  appeared 
in  Yorkshire.  Mr.  Yates  favoured  also  the 
idea  of  establishing  a  Bronte  Museum — an  insti- 
tution in  which  might  be  brought  together 
such  relics  as  were  interesting  of  the  remark- 
able family,  and  all  that  might  be  gathered  of 
their  literary  remains.  And  it  was  an  organiza- 
tion on  these  lines  which  ultimately  came  to 
birth.  One  may  say  here,  anticipating  the 
march  of  events  somewhat,  that  while  the 
Society  may  well  look  to  these  two  men, 
Mr.  Horsfall  Turner  and  Mr.  Yates,  with 
filial  respect,  it  honours  also  with  especial  ten- 
derness among  those  whose  services  it  has  lost 
by  death  the  memory  of  Sir  John  Brigg.  Sir 
John    Brigg    was    native  'to    the    soil    he    long 

120 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

represented  in  Parliament  :  he  had  grown  up 
in  the  very  atmosphere  in  which  the  Brontes 
moved  and  had  their  being.  Where  few  had 
known  the  Brontes  in  anything  more  than 
externals,  he  had  known  about  them  from  his 
earliest  days.  So  that  it  was  more  than  his 
keen  Yorkshire  intellect  and  his  literary  taste 
which  made  him  an  untiring  reader  and  a 
devoted  admirer  of  the  great  books  which  came 
down  from  Haworth  through  Keighley  to  the 
world.  The  Bronte  Society,  then,  was  nursed 
and  nourished  by  Sir  John  Brigg  from  its  infancy, 
though  his  part  in  its  development  was  achieved 
so  unostentatiously  that  few  outside  the  Council 
of  the  Society  realized  the  energy  he  put  into  the 
Society's  affairs.  They  were  glad  occasionally 
after  a  moorland  ramble  at  Haworth  to  take 
tea  at  the  liberally  spread  tables  over  which  he 
presided  as  host,  but  Sir  John  Brigg's  services 
to  the  Society  were  far  more  intimate  than  all 
that  alone  implies. 

The  first  public  step  was  the  issue  in  the 
name  of  the  then  Mayor  of  Bradford  (the  late 
Alderman  Jonas  Whitley)  of  invitations  to  a 
conference,  upon  December  i6,  1893,  at  the 
Bradford  Town  Hall,  "  to  consider  the  advis- 
ability of  forming  a  Bronte  Society  and  Museum." 
The  Rev.  W.  H.  Keeling,  for  many  years  head- 
master of  the  Bradford  Grammar  School,  was 
voted  to  the  chair,  and  it  may  be  interesting  to 

|2I 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

record  the  names  of  those  present.  They  were  : 
Messrs.  E.  Alexander,  F.  C.  Barrans,  G.  Bell  ; 
Hugh  Bingham  (Oakenshaw)  ;  Alderman  (after- 
wards Sir)  John  Brigg  (Kildwick)  ;  J.  J.  Brigg 
(Keighley)  ;  W.  M.  Brookes  ;  John  Clough,  jun, 
(Steeton)  ;  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Dunne  (Laisterdyke)  ; 
C.  A.  Federer,  George  Field,  W.  T.  Field  ; 
Geddes  (Liverpool) ;  J.  A.  (afterwards  Sir  Arthur) 
Godwin ;  James  Gordon ;  Herbert  Hardy 
(Earlsheaton) ;  H.  Hartley  (Morton)  ;  T.  H. 
Horsfall ;  the  Rev.  W.  T.  Key  worth  (Halifax)  ; 
H.  F.  Killick,  Edmund  Lee,  W.  T.  McGowen, 
Town  Clerk  of  Bradford  ;  Frank  Peel  (Heck- 
mondwike)  ;  Collingwood  Pollard  (Thornton)  ; 
John  Popplewell  (long  Chairman  of  the  Bradford 
Free  Libraries  Committee) ;  Percival  Ross  ; 
W.  Scruton  ;  A.  B.  Smith  (Keighley) ;  J.  J. 
Stead  (Heckmondwike)  ;  J.  A.  Erskine  Stuart 
(Batley)  ;  J.  H.  Tattersfield  (Mirfield) ;  Robert 
Thornton  (Heckmondwike)  ;  J.  Horsfall  Turner 
(Idle)  ;  S.  P.  Unwin  (Shipley) ;  C.  Watson, 
F.  Denby  Wheater  (Haworth) ;  Butler  Wood, 
W.  W.  Yates  (Dewsbury),  Miss  Yates.  En- 
couraging letters  and  messages  were  also  received 
from  Messrs.  W.  Ackroyd  (Birkenshaw)  ;  the 
Rev.  Canon  Bardsley  (Vicar  of  Bradford)  ; 
Jonathan  Caldwell  (Brighouse)  ;  the  Rt.  Rev. 
Dr.  Boyd  Carpenter,  Bishop  of  Ripon ;  the 
Rev.  Canon  Lowther  Clarke  (Vicar  of  Dewsbury 
and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Melbourne) ;  the  Misses 

122 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

Cockshott  (Oakworth) ;  Alderman  (afterwards 
the  Right  Hon.)  C.  Milnes  Gaskell  (Wakefield) 
Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  Mark  Oldroyd,  M.P. 
Mr.  Asa  H.  Pyrah  (Mayor  of  Dewsbury) 
Mr.  W.  E.  B.  (afterwards  Sir  William)  Priest- 
ley ;  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  T.  Wemyss  Reid, 
Mr.  George  Smith,  the  veteran  head  of  the 
firm  of  Smith,  Elder  &  Co. — Charlotte  Bronte's 
publishers ;  Mr.  William  Smith  (Morley) ; 
Mr.  Harry  Speight  (Bingley)  ;  Mrs.  C.  E. 
Sugden  (Haworth)  ;  Mrs.  Stevenson  (Market 
Harborough)  ;  Mr.  W.  Douglas  Walker  (New 
York)  ;  Mr.  A.  H.  Wall  (Shakespere  Museum, 
Stratford-on-Avon)  ;  Mr.  Josiah  Winn  (Hali- 
fax) ;  Mr.  (afterward  Sir)  Joseph  Woodhead 
(Huddersfield). 

Encouraged  with  the  promise  of  success  in 
numbers  and  influence — so  much  beyond  the 
expectation  of  the  original  promoters — the  meet- 
ing proceeded  in  high  spirits  to  resolve — 

That  a  Bronte  Society  be  and  is  hereby  formed,  and 
that  the  objects  of  such  Society  be,  amongst  other 
things,  to  establish  a  Museum  to  contain  not  only 
drawings,  manuscripts,  paintings,  and  other  personal 
relics  of  the  Bronte  family,  but  all  editions  of  their 
works,  the  writings  of  authors  upon  these  works,  or 
upon  any  member  of  the  family,  together  with  photo- 
graphs of  places  or  premises  with  which  the  family 
was  associated. 

Upon  this  basis  the  Bronte  Society  came  into 
123 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

existence.  It  continued  to  work  upon  these 
simple  lines  as  a  literary  association,  until  the 
growing  wealth  of  its  collections  and  a  conse- 
quent sense  of  responsibility  rendered  the  Council 
appointed  to  deal  with  the  Society's  affairs 
anxious  that  the  existence  and  purpose  of  their 
organization  should  in  due  form  be  made  known 
to  the  law  of  the  land.  Consequently  in  1902 
the  Society  secured  a  certificate  of  Incorporation 
under  the  Companies  Act,   1862. 

In  its  primary  task  of  establishing  a  Museum 
of  Bronte  relics  the  Society  has  had  a  great 
measure  of  success.  The  first  question  which 
arose  was  that  of  situation.  The  literary  pilgrim 
may  well  think  that  the  question  settles  itself,  and 
that  only  amid  the  *'  heath-clad  showery  hills " 
of  Haworth  where  those  "  unquiet  souls  "  found 
themselves  would  such  an  institution  be  in  its 
true  atmosphere.  But  there  were  difficult  ques- 
tions of  accommodation  and  guardianship  to  be 
arranged,  and  some  members  of  the  Council 
thought  the  permanence  of  the  institution  and 
appeal  to  the  widest  possible  circle  of  readers 
dictated  the  establishment  of  the  collection  in 
one  of  the  larger  towns  or  cities  of  the  West 
Riding.  Mr.  Yates  urged  the  claims  of  Dews- 
bury — others  thought  Bradford  a  quite  natural 
as  well  as  convenient  centre,  for  were  not  the 
Bronte  sisters  born  in  Thornton,  within  the 
boundaries   of   the  old  parish  and    the    modern 

124 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  IVork 

city  of  Bradford  ?  Haworth,  of  whom  hard 
things  have  in  the  past  most  unjustly  been 
said,  was  not  unmindful  of  its  own.  Haworth 
Bronte  lovers — and  they  ever  were  numerous 
— took  a  good  part  in  the  organization  of  the 
Society,  and  the  governing  body  of  the  district, 
with  local  patriotism,  pressed  the  claims  of  their 
little  moorland  town.  It  was,  however,  only 
upon  a  divided  vote  of  six  to  four  that  Haworth 
was  chosen — though  the  minute-book  of  the 
Society  takes  note  of  the  fact  that  before  the 
voting  was  reached  the  Haworth  members  of 
the  Council  had  trustfully  left  to  catch  their 
train.  There  has  never  been  a  moment  of  doubt 
since  that  the  decision  was  wise. 

The  ideal  locality  for  the  Museum  comme- 
morating the  Brontes  would  obviously  be  the 
Parsonage-house  consecrated  by  the  romance 
and  tragedy  of  their  lives.  Precedents  as  well 
as  sentiment  pointed  a  finger  in  that  direction. 
The  chief  shrine  of  Shakesperians  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon  is  naturally  the  poet's  birthplace  ;  that 
of  lovers  of  Milton  the  little  Buckinghamshire 
cottage,  wreathed  in  sweetbrier  and  vine  and 
the  twisted  eglantine,  which  must  ever  have 
remained  in  the  inward  eye  of  the  poet  in  his 
days  of  blindness  as  the  very  picture  of  rural 
delight.  The  Scottish  literary  pilgrim  turns  to 
the  little  thatched  clay  biggin  of  but  and  ben  on 
the  road   to   Alloway,  where  Burns  first  saw  the 

125 


charlotte  Bronte:    a  Centenary  Memorial 

light,  with  even  greater  charm  perhaps  than  to 
the  pretentious  but  (let  it  be  confessed)  rather 
clumsy  magnificence  of  Abbotsford.  And  there 
are  in  this  land  of  ours  simple  homes  richly 
"  humanized  " — as  Mrs.  Browning  put  it — with 
cherished  associations,  standing  as  memorials 
of  Bunyan,  Carlyle,  Stevenson,  and  Barrie,  of 
Cowper  the  poet,  of  Borrow  and  Fitzgerald. 
Above  all  in  appeal,  perhaps,  is  the  Dove 
Cottage  at  the  Town  End  of  Grasmere — that 
'*  little  nook  of  mountain  ground  "  — "  the 
loveliest  spot  that  man  hath  ever  found  " — which 
is  inseparably  associated  with  Wordsworth's  days 
of  poverty  and  genius.  The  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  securing  the  Haworth  Parsonage  to  house 
the  Bronte  Society's  collections  have  hitherto 
proved  insuperable.  The  building  is  vested  in 
the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners,  and  they  are 
bound  to  administer  their  estates  on  the  strictest 
business  principles  without  fear,  favour,  or  literary 
sentiment.  The  difficulties  are  primarily  thus 
a  matter  of  finance,  and  then  perhaps  of  red 
tape.  The  red  tape  would  probably  be  easy  to 
cut,  but  for  the  present  the  Society  has  not 
felt  itself  in  a  financial  position  to  go  to  the 
Commissioners  with  a  proposal  for  the  purchase 
or  the  leasing  of  the  old  Parsonage.  The 
securing  of  that  building,  so  rich  in  memories, 
is,  however,  an  ideal  by  no  means  lost 
sight  of. 

126 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

In  other  rooms — premises  without  romance 
but  with  convenience  enough  for  the  present 
and  just  at  the  head  of  the  steep  village  street 
by  the  church — the  little  Museum  has  been 
arranged.  It  is  to  be  supposed,  of  course,  that 
the  officers  of  a  society  formed  to  do  honour  to 
the  Brontes  would  be  gratified  to  find  the  Brontes 
already  high  in  honour  with  the  collectors,  but 
the  circumstances  must  have  been  also  just  a 
little  embarrassing.  Even  if  the  American 
millionaires  had  not  commenced  to  lay  up  for 
themselves  treasures  of  a  literary  character, 
prices  for  the  more  desirable  of  Bronte  manu- 
scripts might  reasonably  be  framed  on  a  consider- 
able scale.  Emily's  and  Anne's  autographs  are 
not  very  much  more  numerous  than  those 
of  Shakespere  himself,  for  after  their  deaths 
Charlotte  destroyed  nearly  all  within  her  reach  ; 
and  Charlotte's  own,  though  not  rare,  are  almost 
always  so  characterful  that  the  slightest  scrap 
of  her  writing  is  sure  to  be  cherished  as  of 
interest.  With  her,  of  course,  the  autograph 
collector  knows  nothing  of  the  mere  common- 
places of  life,  the  uninspiring  acceptances  of 
invitations  to  dinner  or  excuses  for  their  refusal, 
and  the  like,  which  mark  the  course  through  the 
world  of  most  successful  authors.  So  that  the 
Society's  representative  has  had  to  bite  his  lip 
when  collections  of  letters  and  even  single  docu- 
ments have  been   offered   in   the  sale-rooms   and 

127 


Chanotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

have  attracted  bids  altogether  beyond  the  Society's 
resources  to  compete. 

Such  esteem  in  the  market  has  brought  other 
dangers.  That  apt  and  versatile  rascal  the 
literary  forger  has  been  tempted  to  try  his  hand 
at  supplying  the  demands,  and  there  have  been 
from  time  to  time  at  least  a  few  proved  forgeries 
of  Bronte  documents  put  before  the  public,  and 
others  much  to  be  suspected.  Even  a  great 
institution  like  the  National  Portrait  Gallery, 
for  all  the  learning  and  critical  acumen  of  its 
staff,  has  not  been  proof  against  these  dangers,  as 
the  unlucky  picture  of  "  Charlotte  Bronte " 
*' wearin'  of  the  green  "  bought  in    1906  proved. 

Moreover  the  Bronte  Museum  is  not  merely  a 
collection  of  literary  and  artistic  objects,  the 
genuineness  of  which  may  be  tested,  but  it 
includes  objects  of  domestic  association  with  the 
family.  As  may  be  imagined,  these  present 
frequent  difficulties  of  provenance,  due  not  to 
dishonesty  but  (shall  one  say  ?)  to  the  charitable 
disposition  of  the  owner  to  give  his  rather  doubt- 
ful treasure  all  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  Thus 
some  curious  facts  have  come  to  light.  For 
instance,  there  are  extant  no  fewer  than  five 
pianos  from  the  Bronte  household.  Who  would 
have  supposed  that  a  household  so  small,  with 
so  little  money  for  superfluities,  and  in  musical 
matters  of  no  particular  virtuosity,  could  have 
had     use     for     that     number     of     instruments.? 

128 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

Spectacles  worn  by  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte  are 
in  the  hands  of  dealers  in  such  matters  as 
numerous  as  though  some  member  of  the  family 
of  the  incumbent  of  Haworth  had,  like  the  un- 
lucky heir  of  his  neighbour  the  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field, bought  a  bargain  lot  at  the  fair.  It  is 
only  just  to  say,  however,  that  such  relics  of 
unequivocal  authenticity  are  rather  numerous. 
Indeed,  three  pairs  have  been  admitted  to  the 
Museum. 

Steering  a  cautious  way  amid  these  dangers,  the 
Council  of  the  Society  has  laid  the  foundation 
of  an  excellent  and  most  interesting  collection. 
No  doubt  now  that,  when  the  permanence  of  the 
organization  and  the  evergreen  freshness  of  the 
Bronte  story  in  the  public  mind  have  been  proved 
by  time,  Bronte  collectors  who  have  collected 
for  love  and  not  for  "  an  investment "  will 
appreciate  the  opportunity  of  handing  to  the 
Society's  guardianship  treasures  which  they  do 
not  choose  to  imagine  scattered  to  the  winds  in 
the  sordid  profanation  of  the  auction.  Already 
at  least  one  distinguished  American  Bronte 
enthusiast,  and  more  than  one  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  has  intimated  privately  to  the  Council 
of  the  Society  an  intention  to  "  remember  in  his 
will  "  the  little  institution  at  Haworth. 

Little  space  need  here  be  devoted  to  a  review 
of  the  collection,  for  there  has  been  issued  among 
the  Society's  publications  an  annotated  and  illus- 

129  I 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

trated  catalogue  of  the  Museum,  compiled  by  the 
Hon.  Secretary,  Mr.  W.  T.  Field.  The  Bronte 
student,  it  may,  however,  be  said,  will  feel  that 
all  goes  well  and  upon  the  right  lines.  Already 
the  series  of  portraits  is  fairly  full.  No  one,  of 
course,  will  grudge  the  fact  that  Richmond's 
drawing  of  Charlotte  Bronte  is  here  only  in 
reproduction.  The  original  is  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery — where  it  ought  to  be ;  and 
Branwell  Bronte's  portrait,  too,  of  his  sister  Emily, 
for  all  its  technical  imperfections,  sustains,  not 
without  dignity,  a  great  name  among  her  peers 
in  the  national  collection.  The  Bronte  Society 
has,  however,  a  number  of  pencil  sketches  by 
Branwell  of  his  sisters  and  a  water-colour  of 
Emily  which  is  probably  by  him,  though  it  has 
come  to  be  attributed  to  Charlotte's  own  hand. 
But  Charlotte  certainly  drew  a  portrait  of  her 
sister  Anne  which  is  very  welcome  here.  Anne 
was  the  beauty  of  the  family,  and  the  picture 
suggests  a  sweet  expression  of  countenance,  though 
her  neck  is  hardly  "  in  drawing,"  as  an  artist 
would  say.  But  we  must  remember  that  the 
*'  Books  of  Beauty  "  of  the  time  favoured  for 
ladies  a  peculiar  elongation  of  neck.  Tom 
Moore  set  forth  the  ideal  throat  for  a  lady  as 
**  swan-like,"  and  the  ideal  has  evidently  affected 
the  real  in  Charlotte's  picture.  As  for  Branwell 
himself,  there  is  here  a  silhouette — a  work  not 
without   a   great  deal  of  character — and  a  large 

130 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

and  well  modelled  medallion  by  Leyland  of 
Halifax,  who  was  one  of  his  associates  in  the 
days  when  Branwell's  optimism  foresaw  fame  and 
fortune  as  a  painter.  The  original  daguerreo- 
type of  the  father,  heavily  stocked,  and  grimmer 
in  expression  than  the  worst  gossip  of  Haworth 
ever  made  him  in  reality,  is  here,  and  beside  it 
is  a  water-colour  picture  by  a  professional  like- 
ness-maker of  Mrs.  Bronte,  endorsed  laconically 
by  the  old  man  "  This  is  my  wife."  Mr,  Bronte 
did  not  wear  his  heart  on  his  sleeve.  Of  those 
who  came  within  the  Bronte  orbit  a  very  good 
series  has  been  accumulated.  There  are  gaps 
yet  to  be  filled,  but  the  institution  has  become 
the  natural  depositary  for  the  portraits  of  the 
notabilities  of  the  country-side,  and  many  of  those 
who  figure  in  the  novels  or  are  named  in  the 
letters  are  represented.  Of  personal  souvenirs  of 
the  Brontes  there  are  many.  Charlotte's  hus- 
band, the  Rev.  Arthur  Bell  NichoUs,  who  had  so 
brief  a  married  life  after  his  long  and  patient 
waiting  for  her  hand,  preserved  his  wife's  demure 
wedding-dress  and  bridal  bouquet,  and  they  are 
here.  From  his  keeping,  half  a  century  after 
Charlotte's  death,  came  also  toys  from  the 
Haworth  nursery,  painting  appliances,  and  inti- 
mate treasures  like  desks  and  work-boxes,  which 
apparently  had  never  been  opened  since  Charlotte 
herself  closed  the  lids.  In  one  of  them,  among 
other  cherished  trifles,  was  found  the  silver  medal 

131 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

which  Charlotte  gained  at  Miss  Wooler's  school 
at  Roe  Head.  Miss  Nussey  has  told  the  storv 
of  this  relic.  The  medal  was  a  trophy  at  the 
school,  to  be  worn  for  the  time  being  by  the  girl 
who  most  distinguished  herself  in  "the  fulfilment 
of  duties,"  Charlotte  won  it  in  her  first  half- 
year  at  school,  and  never  had  to  pass  it  on  to  a 
more  exemplary  companion,  so  that  upon  her 
leaving  the  school  the  medal  was  presented  to  her. 
One  feels  that  such  a  relic  is  in  its  proper  place 
in  the  Museum.  There  are  pencil  and  water- 
colour  drawings  by  almost  every  member  of  the 
family — very  numerous  examples  by  Charlotte, 
including  a  really  spirited  drawing  of  her  dog 
Floss,  but  most  of  them  are  precise  and  painful 
reproductions  of  steel  engravings  or  lithographs. 
Their  interest  is  mainly  their  disclosure  of  an 
imaginative  interest  in  the  Haydon  and  Stothard 
type  of  composition  hardly  tolerable  to  the 
modern  generation  of  art-lovers.  A  drawing  by 
Emily  of  her  faithful  and  much  loved  bull-dog 
Keeper — who  himself  played  his  part  in  Shirley^ 
and  is  remembered  as  having  broken-heartedly 
followed  his  young  mistress's  cofifin  into  the  very 
church — this  is  priceless. 

The  budding  literary  ambition  is  represented 
by  the  microscopic  magazines  written  by  the 
children  in  the  Haworth  nursery — those  queer 
little  compositions  in  which  they  practised  their 
'prentice  hands  in  wild  poetry,  and  wilder  prose. 

132 


Q      3 


The  Hronte  Society  and  its   Work 

A  good  many  of  BranweU's  compositions  are  in 
the  collection.  Those  of  the  sisters  have  pro- 
duced such  prodigious  prices  in  the  sale-rooms 
that  the  Society  has  had  to  content  itself  with  a 
specimen  and  await  the  generosity  of  its  friends. 
Then,  of  course,  there  are  duly  represented  the 
books  by  which  fame  came — the  poems  and  then 
the  novels.  Most  of  these  are  in  modern  editions 
or  translations.  First  editions  will  no  doubt 
come  some  day.  The  first  step  in  the  ladder  of 
fame  is  represented  here,  and  one  rejoices  in  the 
circumstance  that  it  has  been  preserved.  Every 
one  remembers  that  of  the  little  book  of  poems 
on  the  publication  of  which  the  sisters  expended 
a  bequest  from  their  aunt  only  two  copies  were 
sold.  One  of  these  somehow  came  into  the  hands 
of  Frederick  Enoch,  the  author  of  the  song,  once 
famous,  "  My  sweetheart  when  a  boy."  His 
perception  was  sufficiently  acute  to  recognize 
genius  in  the  work,  and  he  wrote  to  the  unknown 
poetesses  for  their  autographs.  Here  is  the  sheet 
of  demurely  written  signatures — "  Currer  Bell," 
"  Ellis  Bell  "  and  "  Acton  Bell  "—in  hands  un- 
mistakably feminine,  which  was  sent  in  response 
to  the  request,  but  cautiously  posted  in  London, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  their  publishers, 
lest  their   anonymity  should   be  compromised. 

At  the  opening  of  the  exhibition  the  Society 
was  privileged  to  have  awhile  on  loan  the 
original  manuscripts  of  Jane  Eyre  and   Villette — 

133 


charlotte  Bront'e  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

out  of  the  almost  inexhaustible  store  of  treasures 
belonging  to  the  firm  of  Messrs.  Smith,  Elder  & 
Co.,  the  original  publishers  of  the  novels.  But 
as  a  permanent  possession,  of  course,  such  relics 
are  beyond  hope.  The  only  one  of  the  manu- 
scripts which  did  not  pass  into  the  possession  of 
the  firm — that  of  The  Professor^  or,  as  it  was 
originally  called,  The  Master — is  now  in  the  col- 
lection of  Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan  in  New  York. 
But  already  the  series  of  letters  by  Charlotte  is 
rich  in  interest.  A  few  have  been  bought,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  Society  looks  with  gratitude 
to  Mr  T.  J.  Wise,  the  well-known  collector, 
for  the  gift  of  documents  of  the  tenderest  interest. 
Among  them,  bound  sumptuously,  are  those  last 
faint  lines  in  pencil,  almost  too  sacred  for  full 
publication  in  print,  which  Charlotte  wrote  to 
her  friend  Ellen  Nussey  from  "  my  weary  bed  " 
within  a  few  hours  of  her  death.  These  are 
where  they  should  be — in  the  keeping  of  those 
who  will  reverence  them. 

A  few  manuscripts  of  Mrs.  Gaskell,  of  Mr. 
NichoUs,  and  of  Mr.  Bronte  are  included,  among 
them  being  an  elaborate  list  of  French  phrases 
compiled  by  Mr.  Bronte  for  his  own  use  during 
his  expedition  to  Brussels  in  1842  to  deposit 
his  daughters  in  the  famous  school  in  the  Rue 
d'Isabelle.  Space  forbids  that  the  review  of  the 
little  collection  of  treasures  should  be  carried 
farther.     Suffice    it    to    say    that    Bronte    lovers 

134 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its   Work 

and  even  the  casual  public  have  found  encourage- 
ment and  reward  for  frequent  visits  to  the 
Museum.  During  the  twenty-one  years  it  has 
been  open  there  have  paid  for  admission  more 
than  54,000  persons.  This  takes  no  account  of 
the  members  of  the  Society,  who  are  admitted 
freely  and  whose  visits  and  revisits  are  unrecorded. 
The  first  publication  issued  by  the  Society — 
in  January  1895 — was  an  extensive  "Biblio- 
graphy of  the  Works  of  the  Bronte  Family  : 
including  a  list  of  books  and  magazine  articles 
on  the  Brontes,  together  with  a  notice  of  works 
relating  to  Haworth."  It  was  prepared  by  Mr. 
Butler  Wood,  who  early  in  the  Society's  work 
|»ad  been  marked  out  by  the  Council  to  act  as 
Bibliographical  and  Publication  Secretary.  This 
first  effort  was  followed  two  and  a  half  years 
later  by  a  supplementary  list.  Some  evidence 
of  the  interest  which  successive  generations  of 
readers  and  writers  have  taken  in  the  Brontes 
and  their  books,  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that 
these  two  bibliographical  lists  enumerated  nearly 
seven  hundred  items.  And  they  are  now 
twenty  years  or  more  old.  Since  the  Society's 
work  initiated  a  new  era  of  widespread  interest, 
a  positive  flood  of  literature  discussing  the 
Brontes  has  proceeded  from  the  press,  and  it  is 
quite  probable  that  a  second  supplement  to  the 
Bibliography  could  be  compiled  as  extensive  as 
both   the   previous   lists    taken    together.      It   is 

135 


charlotte  fronts :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

a  task  for  the  future.  Meanwhile  one  may 
note  that  the  cosmopolitan  character  of  the 
reputation  of  the  novels  is  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  beside  the  numerous  reprints  which  have 
appeared  in  England,  Scotland,  the  United 
States  of  America,  Canada,  and  Australia,  trans- 
lations of  one  or  more  have  been  published  in 
France,  Russia,  Germany,  and  Austria,  and 
dramatized  versions  have  been  printed  in  the 
United  States,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  and 
Denmark.  Jane  Eyre  has  most  commended 
itself  to  the  foreign  taste.  Mr.  G.  K.  Chester- 
ton once  shocked  the  Society  by  commending 
'Jane  Eyre  as  the  best  "  penny  dreadful,"  the 
most  thrilling  detective-story  ever  written  in 
English,  and  he  lamented  that  it  alone  of  the 
novels  of  Charlotte  Bronte  followed  the  true 
melodramatic  sequence.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  Mr.  Chesterton's  striking  and  un- 
expected way  of  putting  things,  the  truth  which 
he  was  emphasizing  (or  over-emphasizing)  no 
doubt  lies  at  the  root  of  the  popularity  of  Jane 
Eyre  in  a  foreign  dress.  Shirley^  despite  those 
qualities — or  perhaps  because  of  them — which 
make  it  most  typical  and  photographically  real 
of  all  Yorkshire  novels  ever  written,  has  also 
found  some  acceptance  in  France  and  Germany. 
But,  curiously,  Villettey  which  many  English 
readers  would  be  disposed  to  regard  as  the 
most  delightful,  the  most  powerful  of  the  series, 

136 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its   U'^ork 

has  never  found  a  French  translator — and  that 
notwithstanding  its  brilliantly  drawn  baclcground 
of  the  little  city  of  Brussels.  Perhaps  the  main 
reason  is  that  the  point  of  view  is  so  singularly 
individual,  so  remote  and  perhaps  so  incompre- 
hensible to  the  Continental  mind  ;  for  the  original 
reason  which  prevented  its  translation  —  the 
desire  to  spare  the  feelings  of  persons  all  too 
easily  to  be  identified — can  have  little  weight 
when  after  this  lapse  of  years  all  who  were  con- 
cerned have  passed  away. 

It  is  a  little  curious,  too,  that  on  the  Continent 
the  name  of  "  Bronte  "  is  still  almost  unknown, 
and  the  works  of  the  sisters  still  bear  only  their 
early  pseudonyms,  "  Currer  Bell,"  "  Ellis  Bell," 
and  "  Acton  Bell."  It  is  only  within  the  last  few 
years  that,  in  the  pages  mainly  of  the  Abbe 
Dimnet,  there  has  reached  Continental  readers 
some  echo  of  the  pathetic  story  which  surrounds 
the  production  of  the  novels  and  some  fragrance 
of  the  peat-smoke  of  the  old  homesteads  of 
the  Haworth  moors  and  hillsides.  Even  M. 
Maeterlinck's  contribution  to  Bronte  literature 
is  rather  a  study  of  PVuthering  Heights  in  vacuo. 
He  divined  something  of  the  truth,  but  did  not 
really  comprehend  its  author — she 

whose  soul 
Knew  no  fellow  for  might, 
Passion,  vehemence,  griet. 
Daring,  since  Byron  died. 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

In  the  earlier  days  of  the  Society  a  good 
deal  of  labour  was  devoted  to  the  task  of 
searching  out  the  originals  of  the  places  which 
Charlotte  Bronte  drew  in  her  novels  and  of  the 
characters  with  which  she  peopled  those  scenes. 
Charlotte  Bronte's  genius  was  curiously  objective. 
Quite  as  much  as  any  of  the  writers  of  her 
generation  she  was  *'  subjective  "  in  her  themes. 
Just  as  much  as  Wordsworth,  though  without 
a  trace  of  his  egotism,  she  was  interested — and 
interested  her  readers — in  the  working  of  her 
own  mind  and  of  her  own  emotions.  Except 
in  that  single  and  splendid  instance  when  she 
allowed  her  fancy  to  conceive  what  might  have 
been  had  Nature  endowed  the  stalwart  spirit 
of  her  sister  Emily  with  a  healthy  body  and 
the  social  opportunities  of  a  lady  of  a  manor, 
Charlotte  herself  was  her  own  heroine,  and  her 
spiritual  adventures  were,  with  singularly  little 
translation  and  imaginative  extension,  the  pur- 
pose of  her  work.  It  is  this  realism  which 
appeals  to  the  soul  of  the  reader ;  but  it  is 
supported  by  an  appeal  to  the  mind  through  a 
precision  of  observation  and  meticulous  delinea- 
tion of  the  objects  and  the  people  around  her, 
such  as  one  finds  in  equal  degree  in  few  other 
writers.  If  the  Celt  within  her  indulged  in  the 
building  of  castles  of  romance,  the  Yorkshire- 
woman  saw  to  it  that  they  were  constructed  of 
sound  materials    and    firm    based    as    solid    earth 

138 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

— the  rough  rock  of  mind  and  heart  which 
she  found  in  the  men  and  women  about  her, 
the  picturesque  and  enduring  gritstone  and  oak 
of  the  Pennine  homesteads,  or  maybe  the  brick 
and  stucco  of  her  Belgian  schooldays. 

Thus  Yorkshire  folk  recognized  even  in  the 
backgrounds  of  the  drama  a  phase  of  interest 
lost  to  the  stranger — or  only  unconsciously 
enjoyed — that  interest  in  familiar  things  pictured 
which  is  of  universal  appeal.  The  examination 
of  origins  did  not,  of  course,  imply  blindness  or 
numbness  to  the  greater  purpose — the  psycho- 
logical drama,  but  was  the  development  of  a  further 
charm  for  those  who  could  share  it.  One  need 
not  stay  here  to  defend  this  research,  though 
it  has  been  denied  that  the  admirer  of  a  work  of 
art  has  any  right  to  peep  behind  the  veil  which 
hides  the  artist  in  his  studio,  to  ask  any  questions 
about  his  models,  or  to  analyze  his  palette. 
That  attitude  was  hardly  possible  even  as  a 
monastic  ideal,  and  generations  far  removed 
from  one  another  in  other  points  of  view  have 
agreed  in  treasuring  even  indifferent  pictures 
when  they  could  recognize  Dante,  or  Raphael, 
or  the  young  Keats  drawn  to  the  life  in  figures 
in  the  background,  and  to  accept  even  the 
faultless  craftsmanship  of  a  Millais  as  enhanced 
in  interest  by  the  knowledge  that  his  picture  was 
something  more  than  a  fancy  out  of  Boccaccio 
or  Chaucer,  but  gave  us  veritable  likenesses  of  his 

139 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

kindred    spirits    in    the    Pre-Raphaelite    Brother- 
hood. 

It  is  true  this  work  of  identifying  originals 
in  the  novels  of  Charlotte  Bronte  was  commenced 
a  little  too  soon  for  the  authoress's  own  peace  of 
mind,  and,  as  is  the  way  of  a  gossip-loving  world, 
it  was  mostly  the  least  complimentary  features 
which  were  recognized — Cromwell's  wart  rather 
than  his  massive  brow  and  far-seeing  eye — and 
was  in  consequence  resented.  But  one  could 
wish  that  it  had  entered  into  the  heart  of  one  of 
Charlotte's  contemporaries  to  have  annotated  her 
novels,  for  much  that  bears  the  convincing 
similitude  of  realism  in  personality  and  cir- 
cumstance is  not  now  to  be  connected  with  its 
origin. 

The  first  volume  of  the  Transactions  of  the 
Society  contained  valuable  aids  to  the  study  of 
the  topography  of  the  novels.  Dr.  J.  A.  Erskine 
Stuart,  who  had  been  perhaps  the  first  to  give 
the  subject  earnest  study,  read  to  the  Society  in 
1894  a  suggestive  paper  on  the  Bronte  Nomen- 
clature. 

The  Rev.  T.  Keyworth  and  Mr.  J.  J.  Stead 
in  1896  put  before  the  Society  clear  evidence 
for  the  identification  of  the  Morton  of  Jane  Eyre 
with  the  little  Derbyshire  village  of  Hathersage, 
the  home  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Nussey,  brother  of 
Charlotte's  friend,  Ellen  Nussey — a  zealous  young 
clergyman   who   was   beyond  question  the  model 

140 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its   Work 

for  the  strongly  individual  character  of  St.  John 
Rivers  in  the  novel.  Mr.  Stead  also  compiled  in 
1896,  for  an  excursion  of  the  Society  to  the 
country  about  Birstall  depicted  in  Shirley^  a  precise 
little  guide-book — if  it  may  be  so  called — which 
has  been  very  useful  and  was  reprinted  by  the 
Society,  with  additions  and  excellent  illustrations, 
ten  years  later.  And  the  late  Mr.  P.  F.  Lee 
recounted  some  associations  of  Charlotte  with 
Bridlington  which  threw  a  little  light  on  some 
passages  in  the  novels  and  much  more  upon  a 
pleasant  episode  of  Charlotte's  life.  In  a  series 
of  parts  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Society — 
constituting  the  third  volume — the  writer  of 
these  lines  was  permitted  to  bring  together  a 
more  exhaustive  account,  from  published  and 
unpublished  sources,  of  The  Persons  and  Places 
of  the  Bronte  Novels. 

In  the  same  spirit,  though  less  directly  associated 
with  the  Brontes  and  their  writings,  have  been 
the  studies  of  the  local  history  of  Haworth  and 
of  Thornton  which  the  members  have  received 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Society.  The 
former  was  originally  written  by  Mr.  J.  Frederick 
Greenwood,  of  Haworth,  to  be  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  members  of  the  British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  Bradford  meeting  in  1900,  when  an 
excursion  to  Haworth  was  included  among  the 
relaxations  from  the  sterner  labours  of  the  lecture- 

141 


Charlotte  Brontt' :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

rooms.  Rightly  judging  the  work  to  be  of  too 
much  permanent  interest  to  be  lost  sight  of  in 
the  casual  papers  of  that  meeting,  the  Council  of 
the  Society  secured  permission  to  reprint  it,  and 
it  now  takes  its  place  in  the  second  volume  of  the 
'•trayisactions.  The  historical  sketch  of  Thornton 
entitled  Thornton  and  the  Brontes  was  issued  as 
a  separate  publication  by  Mr.  William  Scruton, 
the  author  of  many  historical  studies  of  Bradford 
and  its  neighbourhood,  and  by  the  generosity  of 
Sir  William  Priestley,  M.P.,  a  copy  was  presented 
to  each  member  of  the  Society.  The  work  is  of 
special  interest  to  Bronte  students  not  only  for 
its  careful  presentation  of  the  remote  little  village 
in  which  the  Brontes  were  born — an  environment 
which  affected  the  novels  themselves  in  many 
ways — but  also  because  there  are  embodied  in 
it  the  impressions  of  several  of  those  who  had 
personal  association  with  the  Brontes  in  their 
own  home. 

The  Society  has  also  manifested  its  interest  in 
the  topographical  side  of  Bronte  studies  by 
organizing  each  summer  an  excursion  to  one 
place  or  another  associated  with  the  Brontes  and 
their  books.  Haworth,  of  course,  has  claimed 
most  attention,  and  assemblies  there  have  been 
numerous — sometimes  to  visit  the  Museum, 
sometimes  to  enjoy  the  scent  of  the  heather  on  the 
moors,  sometimes  to  push  farther  afield  to  the 
old  homesteads  Ponden  and  Wycoller,  which  were 

142 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

familiar  scenes  to  the  sisters  and  find  some 
reflection  in  the  scenery  of  the  novels.  Several 
visits  have  been  made  to  Oakwell  Hall — the 
principal  scene  of  Shirley  — and  to  other  spots  of 
interest  in  its  vicinity — to  the  Kirkby  Lonsdale 
district  on  the  borders  of  Westmorland  and  the 
Derbyshire  village  of  Hathersage  painted  in  Jane 
Eyre^  and  on  one  occasion  it  was  proposed  to 
undertake  a  visit  to  Brussels.  Unluckily  the 
enterprise  was  postponed,  and  before  another 
opportunity  arose  the  Rue  d'lsabelle  and  the  old 
school  buildings  themselves  had  been  wholly 
swept  away  in  the  grandiose  preparations  for  the 
erection  of  a  Central  railway  station. 

The  reading  of  papers,  a  form  of  activity  which 
has  been  disparaged  as  the  ploughing  of  sands, 
was,  as  will  have  been  noticed,  not  the  prime  and 
supreme  object  of  the  Bronte  Society  as  it  was 
with  the  Wordsworth,  Browning,  and  similar 
societies.  But  the  members  have  very  gladly 
listened  to  all  who  had  a  "  message."  It  may  be 
confessed  that  it  was  with  the  hope  of  securing 
for  the  Brontes  a  place  in  that  noble  series  of 
addresses  on  literary  subjects,  for  which  Lord 
Rosebery  secured  the  gratitude  of  book-lovers, 
that  the  members  at  the  outset  of  the  Society 
elected  his  lordship  as  their  president.  Lord 
Rosebery  was  at  the  moment  engrossed  with 
the  labours  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  very  soon 
afterwards  was  to  become  Premier.     Apparently 

143 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

he  hesitated  ;  he  sent  the  Society  an  encouraging 
assurance  of  his  interest  in  their  work,  but 
ultimately  declined  the  office.  Lord  Houghton, 
afterwards  the  Marquis  of  Crewe,  himself  a  poet 
and  the  son  of  a  Yorkshire  poet,  accepted  the 
position  of  president,  but  though  he  held  it  for 
twelve  years  he  was  unhappily  prevented  from 
taking  any  part  in  the  work  of  the  Society.  He 
was  succeeded  in  1906  by  Sir  John  Brigg,  M.P., 
who  remained  president  till  his  death  in  191 1, 
when  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  acceded  to  the 
request  of  the  Society  to  undertake  the  duties. 
Of  Sir  John  Brigg's  part  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Society  something  has  already  been  said,  and 
Mrs.  Ward  has  on  one  or  two  occasions  found 
it  possible  to  encourage  the  Society  by  her 
presence  and  speech. 

Other  distinguished  students  of  literature  have 
from  time  to  time  addressed  the  Society.  Sir 
T.  Wemyss  Reid,  who  was,  after  Mrs.  Gaskeil, 
the  first  to  raise  the  veil  for  worshippers  at  the 
Bronte  shrine,  was  only  prevented  by  illness 
from  formally  opening  the  Museum  in  1895, 
and  a  paper  which  he  prepared  for  that  occa- 
sion, and  an  address  he  delivered  to  the  Society 
in  1898,  are  printed  among  the  Society's  Trans- 
actions. Mr.  Swinburne  and  Mr.  Augustine 
Birrell  could  never  be  persuaded  to  add  any- 
thing by  way  of  personal  encouragement  to  the 
Society  beyond    the    stimulus    afforded    by  their 

144 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its  Work 

admirable  contributions  to  Bronte  literature. 
But  Mr.  Shorter,  the  editor  of  the  letters — to 
whom  all  Bronte  students  are  supremely  grate- 
ful— and  Sir  W.  Robertson  NicoJl  were  early 
in  their  assistance  and  counsel.  The  literary 
problems  of  the  Brontes,  their  genius,  their  place 
in  the  history  of  the  English  novel,  have  been 
very  suggestively  discussed  by  Dr.  R.  Garnett,  long 
of  the  British  Museum,  Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton 
and  Mr.  A.  C,  Benson — who  devoted  themselves 
particularly  to  the  work  of  Charlotte  Bronte  ;  by 
Lord  Haldane  and  Mr.  J.  Fotheringham — who 
dealt  specifically  with  Emily  Bronte  ;  and  aspects 
of  the  subject  have  been  treated  more  generally 
by  Professor  G.  Saintsbury,  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse, 
Mr.  Ernest  de  Selincourt,  Professor  C.  E. 
Vaughan,  and  Mr.  Thomas  Seccombe.  Mr. 
Halliwell  Sutcliffe,  who  has  enriched  the  Haworth 
district  and  the  wild  country  beyond  by  an 
assiduous  collection  and  a  skilled  literary  treat- 
ment of  a  mass  of  tradition  untouched  by  the 
Brontes,  dealt  almost  lyrically  of  "  The  Spirit 
of  the  Moors  "in  one  address  to  the  Society  ;  and 
Mr.  Keighley  Snowden,  another  novelist  native 
to  the  soil  who  has  found  yet  other  sources  of 
local  inspiration,  has  been  among  those  who 
have  paid  tribute  to  the  genius  of  the  Bronte 
family.  The  contributions  of  Sir  Sidney  Lee, 
of  the  Right  Rev.  J,  E.  C.  Welldon  (Dean  of 
Manchester),    and    of  Mrs.   Ellis    H.    Chadwick 

145  K 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Cente7iary  Memorial 

have     been    of    a    biographical     character.       Sir 
Sidney  Lee  related  many  interesting  reminiscences 
still  current  in  the  family  of  the  late  Sir  George 
Smith,    concerning    Charlotte    Bronte's    relations 
with   the   firm   of  Smith,   Elder   &   Co.,   and  of 
her   visits   to   London.       Bishop    Welldon    dealt 
with  certain  Manchester  literary  associations,  for 
it    will    be    remembered    that    it    was    whilst    at 
Manchester    that    Charlotte    Bronte    commenced 
to  write   Jane  Eyre.     These  and  other  addresses 
have    much    enriched    the    Society's   Transactions. 
Pioneer  work  in  the  study  of  material  untouched 
hitherto — the  Juvenilia — has  been  carried  out  by 
Dr.  George   Edwin    MacLean,   the   former   head 
of  the  University  of  Iowa,  in  the  United  States, 
and  he  has  shown  that  there  exists  here  a  profit- 
able  field  which   it   may   be   hoped  will   continue 
to  be  cultivated.     One   must   not  forget  in  this 
brief  review  of   the    Society's    publications    that 
through  the    generosity  of   Mr.  John  Waugh — 
an  enthusiastic  Bronte  collector — the  Society  was 
enabled    to    reprint    for    the    members'    use    the 
admirable  article    which    Miss    Nussey   wrote    in 
Scribner  s  Magazine  as  long    ago  as   187 1,  pre- 
serving most  valuable  reminiscences    of  her  life- 
long friend.     Miss  Nussey  had    attained  a  very 
advanced    age     before    the    Society    came    into 
existence,  and  she  could  never  be  persuaded  to 
leave   the    seclusion    with   which    she   ever    sur- 
rounded herself  to  take  a   part  in  the  Society's 

146 


The  Bronte  Society  and  its   Work 

affairs,  but  she  manifested  the  keenest  interest 
in  its  work,  and  many  of  the  relics  which  she 
had  preserved  find  a  place  in  the  Museum. 

From  the  beginning  the  Society  has  been 
fortunate  in  its  officers.  The  duties  of  Secretary 
were  at  the  outset  carried  out  by  Mr.  J.  Hors- 
fall  Turner.  On  his  retirement  Mr.  Butler 
Wood  was  elected  as  Bibliographical  Secretary 
and  Mr.  William  T.  Field  as  Corresponding 
Secretary,  and  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  Society 
owes  much  of  its  success  to  their  enthusiastic 
energy  and  caution.  The  Treasurers  of  the 
Society  have  been  the  late  F.  G.  Galloway,  of 
Bradford  (1894  to  his  death  in  1896)  ;  the  late 
Alfred  Newboult,  of  Bradford  (1896  to  his  death 
in  1897);  Mr.  J.  J.  Stead,  of  Heckmondwike 
(1898-1906);  Mr.  Frederick  A.  T.  Mossman, 
of  Bradford  ( 1906-19 15)  ;  and  Mr.  W.  Robert- 
shaw  (since  19 15).  Though  the  membership  of 
the  Society  has  been  drawn  from  practically  all 
parts  of  the  English-speaking  world,  it  has  been  a 
matter  of  convenience  that  the  members  of  the 
Council  of  the  Society  have  principally  been 
residents  within  easy  reach  of  Haworth  and 
Bradford,  and  it  is  satisfactory  that  there  has 
never  been  a  moment  when  interest  in  the 
Society's  affairs  has  flagged.  The  following 
have  acted  as  chairmen  of  the  Council  : — Sir 
John  Brigg,  M.P.  (1894-1896)  ;  Mr.  J.  J. 
Brigg,  of  Keighley   (1897);    Mr.    J.   F.  Green- 

147 


Charlotte  Bront? :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

wood,  of  Haworth  (1898-1900)  ;  Mr.  W,  W. 
Yates,  of  Dewsbury  (1901)  ;  Mr.  S.  P.  Unwin, 
of  Shipley  (i 902-1 905)  ;  Mr.  Butler  Wood,  of 
Bradford  (1906-1908)  ;  Mr.  J,  J.  Stead,  of  Heck- 
mondwike  (1909-19 10) ;  Miss  Cockshott,  of  Oak- 
worth  (191 1)  ;  Mr.  W.  de  Witt  Blackstock,  of 
Chapel-en-le-Frith  (19 12)  ;  Mr.  John  Watkin- 
son,  of  Huddersfield  (1913)  ;  Mr.  George  Day, 
of  Dewsbury  (1914)  ;  and  Mr.  Frederick  A.  T. 
Mossman,  of  Bradford  (191 5-1 9 16). 


148 


THE   PLACE    OF    CHARLOTTE 

BRONTE   IN    NINETEENTH 

CENTURY    FICTION 

By   Dr.    RICHARD   GARNETT,    C.B. 

An  Address  delivered  to  the  Bronte  Society  at  Keighlby, 
ON  January  23,   1904 

r 


THE  PLACE  OF  CHARLOTTE  BRONTE 
IN   NINETEENTH    CENTURY   FICTION 

The  invitation  to  address,  on  the  subject  of 
Charlotte  Bronte,  an  audience  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  country  people,  who,  if  her  life  could 
have  been  prolonged  to  the  present  day,  would 
have  been  her  friends  and  neighbours,  and 
failing  that  are  her  sincere  venerators  and  ad- 
mirers, may  well  be  regarded  as  both  an  honour 
and  a  pleasure  by  any  to  whose  lot  it  may  fall. 
In  my  case  it  is  attended  with  peculiar  gratifica- 
tion, inasmuch  as,  though  not  a  native  or  an 
inhabitant  of  the  Bronte  country,  I  may  claim 
some  affinity  with  it.  My  ancestors,  when  I 
first  encounter  them,  are  found  dwelling  in 
the  little  moorland  hamlet  of  Eldwick,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bingley,  and  I  was  myself 
baptized  in  Bingley  Parish  Church.  The  possi- 
bility of  walking  from  Bingley  to  Haworth  and 
back  in  a  long  summer  morning  was,  when  I 
was  younger  and  more  active  than  I  am  now, 
victoriously  demonstrated  by  myself.  I  feel, 
therefore,    that    I    am     not    altogether     among 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

strangers,  and  that  I  may  claim  some  little  parti- 
cipation in  the  honour  which  the  birth  of 
Charlotte  Bronte  at  Haworth  reflects  upon  the 
district.  Happy  the  district  which  does  possess 
a  minor  tutelary  divinity,  or  at  least  a  local 
hero  or  heroine !  Daniel  Webster,  addressing 
the  citizens  of  Rochester  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  a  place  celebrated  for  its  lofty  waterfall, 
informed  them  that  no  people  had  ever  lost 
their  liberties  who  had  a  waterfall  forty  feet 
high.  A  tall  statement  ;  taller,  some  think, 
than  the  waterfall.  But  it  is  perfectly  true  that 
a  community  with  a  great  memory  of  person 
or  event  to  which  it  can  and  does  look  up  is 
more  certain  than  a  community  less  fortunate 
in  this  particular  of  retaining  its  self-respect. 

The  very  fact,  however,  that  I  share  in  the 
patriotic  feeling  which  has  founded  and  which 
maintains  the  Bronte  Society,  admonishes  me  to 
be  cautious  in  my  treatment  of  Charlotte  Bronte. 
Among  the  reports  of  the  proceedings  of  previous 
meetings  which  have  been  kindly  sent  me  for 
perusal  I  observe  an  excellent  remark,  not 
emanating  from  a  distinguished  visitor  but  from 
one  of  yourselves,  that  there  is  a  danger  attend- 
ing all  societies  formed  for  the  study  and 
celebration  of  particular  authors,  the  danger, 
namely,  that  the  author  in  question  may  come 
to  be  regarded  as  the  centre,  so  to  speak,  of  a 
solar    system,    around    whom    all    other    authors 

152 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

revolve  like  minor  luminaries.  This  would  be 
a  wrong  position  even  for  a  Shakespeare  or  a 
Dante,  or  a  Goethe,  not  to  say  a  Spenser  or  a 
Chaucer.  There  is  no  centre  for  the  universe 
of  Literature  but  the  ideal  of  Literature  her- 
self, the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land. 
Especially  is  this  danger  aggravated  when,  as  in 
our  case,  patriotic  fervour  blends  with  aesthetic 
admiration.  Within  due  limits  this  fervour  is 
a  most  excellent  thing.  It  supplies  warmth  and 
colour  ;  to  vary  slightly  a  saying  of  Emerson's, 
it  sets  criticism  aflame  with  emotion  :  nay,  it 
aids  to  the  shortcoming  of  the  critical  faculty. 
As  so  finely  said  by  Shelley,  "  Love  where 
Wisdom  fails  makes  Cythna  wise."  But,  carried 
to  excess,  it  aflixes  a  note  of  provincialism  upon 
the  admirers,  and,  which  is  much  worse,  upon 
the  object  of  their  admiration  also.  This  im- 
putation of  provincialism  may  be  extremely 
unjust,  but  so  long  as  it  adheres  it  is  fatal,  and 
rightly  so,  for  provincialism  in  the  sense  in  which 
I  am  employing  the  term  denotes  a  stratum  of 
mind  below  the  region  of  the  highest  excellence, 
permanently  and  irremediably  at  a  lower  level. 
It  is  not  like  a  stain  upon  a  fine  stuff,  it  is  a 
stuff  of  inferior  texture  throughout  :  and  in 
worse  plight  than  material  stuff  inasmuch  as  it 
cannot  be  converted  into  a  finer  material  by 
mechanical  process,  as  Sir  John  Cutler's  worsted 
stockings    became    silk    stockings    by    assiduous 

i?3 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

darning.  I  will  not  say  that  it  cannot  be  dyed 
to  look  for  awhile  like  the  better  quality,  but 
such  dyes  are  deficient  in  permanence,  and  you 
cannot  dye  a  second-rate  author  once  a  fortnight, 
like  a  Persian's  beard.  We  could  not  do  Charlotte 
Bronte  a  greater  disservice  than  to  fix  the  note 
of  Provincialism  upon  her.  Instead,  therefore, 
of  devoting  my  paper  to  an  encomium  upon 
her,  which  might  be  perilous,  I  shall  compare 
her  with  those  great,  and,  as  I  frankly  admit, 
in  many  respects  greater,  authors  of  her  time 
with  whom  she  admits  of  comparison,  and 
endeavour  to  show  that  she  has  a  sphere  of  her 
own  independent  of  any  of  theirs,  which  she 
occupies  with  as  much  mastery  as  any  of  them 
occupy  their  own,  and  which  but  for  her  would 
have  remained  unoccupied  by  any  first-class 
writer.  The  sphere  I  mean  is  a  sphere  of  sub- 
jective feeling  in  the  narrowest  sense  of  the 
term.  I  am  not  comparing  Charlotte  Bronte 
with  writers  like  George  Eliot,  who  delineate 
subjective  emotion  from  the  outside  as  creators 
or  observers,  and  paint  states  of  feeling  most 
alien  to  their  own,  inspired  by  passions  of  which 
they  themselves  have  had  no  experience.  Such 
a  method  is  a  blending  of  the  objective  and 
subjective  ;  it  is  subjective  in  so  far  as  it  deline- 
ates mental  states,  and  only  uses  incident  as  a 
means  of  producing  those  states  ;  but  it  is 
objective    in    so   far   as   it    describes    conditions 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

external  to  the  author,  and  unshared  by  him. 
The  subjectivity  of  Charlotte  Bronte  is  that  more 
intense  subjectivity  of  which,  when  fictitious 
narrative  is  its  medium,  Byron  is  perhaps  the 
most  conspicuous  example  in  our  literature, 
where  fictitious  narrative  is  merely  the  means 
of  expressing  the  writer's  own  personality,  and, 
substantially,  story  and  character  and  reflection 
are  but  the  external  projection  of  his  own  being. 
In  making  the  round  of  Charlotte  Bronte  and 
those  of  her  contemporaries  who  have  pretensions 
to  stand  in  the  first  rank,  I  think  we  shall  find 
that  she  is  the  only  one  who  absolutely  conforms 
to  this  model  :  and  if  so,  she  has  a  sphere  of  her 
own  ;  and  if  this  is  the  case,  and  if  she  fills  this 
sphere  with  no  less  power  and  mastery  than  her 
most  eminent  contemporaries  fill  theirs,  she  is 
no  less  entitled  to  the  first-class  rank  than  they 
are,  even  though  her  sphere  may  be  considerably 
more  restricted.  Of  course  she  was  very  far 
from  having  the  field  of  subjective  fiction  of  the 
intenser  type  entirely  to  herself.  The  number 
of  novels  of  this  type  published  in  the  Early 
and  Middle  Victorian  periods  was  very  great, 
and  many  of  them  were  very  excellent  fictions, 
but  I  do  not  think  that  there  are  any  besides  hers 
for  which  any  one  at  the  present  day  would  be 
disposed  to  claim  the  attribute  of  genius.  One 
result  of  this  method  of  treatment  must  be  that 
we    shall    have  less   to  say  of  Charlotte    Bronte 

155 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

herself  and  more  of  her  contemporaries  than 
might  be  expected  in  a  discourse  of  which  she 
is  the  professed  subject.  But  it  is  well  in  her 
own  interest  to  turn  aside  for  awhile  from  the 
direct  contemplation  of  her  as  an  isolated  literary 
phenomenon,  and  note  how  she  stands  with  refer- 
ence to  those  kindred  geniuses  who  share  with 
her  the  admiration  of  posterity.  If  she  appeared 
as  the  satellite  of  any  of  these  she  would  have  to 
be  content  with  a  secondary  position.  But  I 
think  it  will  appear  that  she  occupies  quite  a 
distinct  position  of  her  own,  and  fills  a  place  to 
which  they  do  not  pretend.  I  do  not,  of  course, 
intend  by  this  a  merely  local  position  as  the 
laureate  of  the  moorlands,  or  even  as  the  literary 
representative  of  the  great  West  Riding  of  York- 
shire. It  is  here  that  the  caution  which  I  have 
ventured  to  give  against  provincialism  is  applic- 
able. The  West  Riding  may  and  should  glory 
in  her  ;  but  if  she  is  to  rank  among  great  writers, 
it  must  be  shown  that  her  West  Riding  tales  are 
as  fit  for  universal  humanity  as  George  Sand's 
idylls  of  Berrichon  country  life,  no  less  steeped 
in  local  colouring  than  Charlotte  Bronte's  novels, 
but  readable  from  China  to  Peru. 

The  great  novelists  of  the  early  and  middle 
divisions  of  the  Victorian  era,  who  constitute  the 
constellation  of  which  we  maintain  Charlotte 
Bronte  to  have  been  a  bright  particular  star,  are 
Dickens,     Thackeray,    George    Eliot,    Kingsley, 


charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

Anthony  Trollope,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  Bulwer,  Borrow, 
and  Disraeli.  The  list  is  rigidly  framed,  exclud- 
ing writers  so  excellent  in  their  respective  styles 
as  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Miss  Yonge,  and  Wilkie 
Collins.  I  think  it  will  be  allowed  that  the 
quality  of  genius  may  be  predicated  of  them  all. 
Some  doubts  might  possibly  arise  respecting  the 
claims  of  Bulwer  and  Trollope  to  this  divine 
attribute  :  but,  even  if  the  men  were  not  in  the 
strictest  sense  geniuses,  their  talent  appears  all 
the  more  prodigious,  and  their  productiveness 
renders  them  more  conspicuous  in  our  literature 
than  writers  of  finer  endowments  whose  spheres 
were  more  limited  and  partial. 

Dickens  and  Thackeray,  though  each  had  too 
much  good  taste  to  depreciate  the  other  openly, 
neither  admired  nor  sympathized  with  each  other 
as  they  might  have  done.  Nevertheless,  their 
names  are  as  intimately  coupled  in  our  literature 
as  are  in  German  literature  the  names  of  the  two 
poets  whose  union  in  mind  and  heart  was  most 
perfect,  Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  for  the  same 
reason,  not  merely  because  they  were  illustrious 
contemporaries,  but  because  they  are  both  the 
contrasts  to  and  the  complements  of  each  other, 
Dickens  is  the  prose  poet,  Thackeray  the  con- 
summate master  of  prose.  Dickens  is  the  great 
painter  of  the  teeming  life  of  the  humbler  orders 
of  society  :  Thackeray  of  the  higher  and  of  the 
upper  middle  classes  and  those  parasitic  growths 

157 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

of  humbler  origin — the  valet,  the  bill  discounter, 
the  toady,  and  the  like — which  insinuate  them- 
selves into  their  sphere.  Dickens  is  the  unsur- 
passed master  of  broad  humour  whether  jovial 
or  grotesque  ;  Thackeray  of  humour  in  its  more 
refined  manifestations.  Thackeray  is  a  most 
admirable  writer  both  of  humorous  and  pathetic 
verse,  but  you  can  scarcely  call  him  a  poet  : 
Dickens  is  rarely  other  than  a  poet,  though  much 
beside,  but  his  metrical  performances  are  insig- 
nificant. Neither  touch  Charlotte  Bronte  any- 
where, they  leave  the  field  entirely  open  for  her 
peculiar  gift :  and,  notwithstanding  her  enthusi- 
astic admiration  for  Thackeray,  she  would  have 
written  as  she  has  written  if  he  had  not  existed. 
It  is  scarcely  needful  to  discuss  the  relation  of 
Anthony  Trollope  and  George  Eliot  to  Charlotte 
Bronte,  as  they  both  came  after  her,  and  had 
there  been  any  question  of  borrowing  or  of 
influence,  they  would  evidently  have  been  the 
indebted  parties.  In  fact  no  such  question  arises : 
but  it  is  impossible,  in  however  brief  a  survey 
of  Charlotte  Bronte's  position  in  the  literature  of 
her  time,  to  pass  over  the  strong  affinity  between 
her  work  and  a  portion  of  George  Eliot's.  At 
first  sight  this  is  not  so  apparent,  owing  to  the 
great  dissimilarity  of  atmosphere  and  environ- 
ment. George  Eliot  never  came  into  Yorkshire, 
or  resided  at  Brussels,  or  was  brought  up  at  a 
semi-charity  school,  or  shared  the  hard  lot  of 
•  158 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Piction 

private-school  teachers  or  governesses,  Charlotte 
Bronte  knew  little  about  the  Midland  counties, 
or  Florence,  or  political  agitations,  or  foreign 
gaming  tables.  Nevertheless  there  is  one  fibre 
almost  identical,  or  if  distinction  there  be  it  is 
that  in  Charlotte  Bronte's  case  the  fibre  is  the 
whole  woman,  while  in  George  Eliot's  it  is  but 
one  string  of  a  most  ample  harp.  I  mean  the 
fibre  of  passion.  Passion  is  the  dominant  note 
of  Charlotte  Bronte's,  nay  it  is  more,  it  is  the 
music.  Take  away  this  ardent,  impetuous,  some- 
times tempestuous  feeling,  and  little  remains. 
But  it  exists  equally  in  the  rich  nature  of  George 
Eliot,  only  in  company  with  so  many  other 
emotions  as  to  be  much  less  conspicuous.  Take, 
however,  the  character  of  Maggie  Tulliver,  and 
you  will  see  passion  fully  as  intense  and  fully  as 
genuine  as  any  that  Charlotte  Bronte  ever  de- 
picted :  only  surrounded  with  such  a  crowd  of 
circumstances  into  which  passion  does  not  enter, 
but  which  are  represented  with  equal  mastery, 
that  it  does  not  produce  the  same  overwhelming 
effect.  You  cannot  well  think  of  Maggie  Tul- 
liver without  the  three  aunts  coming  to  mind 
also.  The  point  for  us,  however,  is  that  there 
is  no  trace  of  any  direct  influence  of  Charlotte 
Bronte  upon  George  Eliot.  Both  drew  from  the 
book  of  Nature,  both  obeyed  the  precept  :  Look 
into  thy  heart  and  write.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Maggie  is  a  closer  portrait  of  George  Eliot 

159 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

than  any  of  her  other  personages,  but  she  is  only 
one  aspect  of  a  various  and  opulent  nature,  while 
Jane  Eyre  and  Caroline  Helston  and  Lucy 
Snowe  are  substantially  Charlotte  Bronte  herself. 
Hence  their  surpassing  force  ;  they  gain  in  in- 
tensity what  they  lose  in  breadth.  In  truth  to 
nature  and  in  the  interest  of  person  and  situation, 
there  is  nothing  to  choose  between  Charlotte  and 
her  successor.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  Char- 
lotte Bronte  owes  much  of  her  energy  of  repre- 
sentation to  her  custom  of  writing  in  the  first 
person.  Two  of  her  three  novels  are  so  com- 
posed, and  hence  emotion  comes  straight  from 
author  to  reader  without  the  interposition  of  any 
medium.  This  method  has  its  disadvantages, 
but  is  excellent  for  the  subjective  writer  whose 
forte  is  passion.  The  Sorrows  of  Werther  could 
not  otherwise  have  been  made  impressive,  but 
when  Goethe  came  to  give  a  picture  of  general 
society  he  dropped  it  :  nor  is  it  a  usual  method 
with  the  novelists  who  have  given  us  entire 
worlds  of  personages,  Scott  and  Dickens,  and 
George  Eliot.  I  might  almost  add  Anthony 
Trollope,  though  perhaps  the  bulk  of  the  latter's 
work  might  be  more  correctly  described  as  con- 
stituting not  a  world  but  a  panorama.  A  mar- 
vellous panorama  it  is  of  "  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men,"  and  if  wanting  the  creative  breath 
which  pervades  Dickens  it  may  at  least  be  said 
that  TroUope's   observation  sometimes    aids  him 

i<5o 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

where  Dickens's  deserts  him.  Dickens  is  a  poet, 
and  a  poet  cannot  work  unless  he  be  in  some 
degree  in  sympathy  with  his  subject.  Dickens's 
sympathy  apparently  abandoned  him  when  he 
came  to  deal  with  the  higher  classes,  and  his 
portraits  of  these  are  little  better  than  caricatures. 
He  is  the  painter,  whose  ability  to  render  faith- 
fully what  he  sees  distinctly  may  be  impaired  by 
the  state  of  his  nerves,  or  any  one  of  a  thousand 
accidents.  But  TroUope  is  like  a  camera  ;  fit  the 
instrument  up  properly,  bring  the  object  to  it  or 
it  to  the  object,  and  you  may  be  sure  of  a  faith- 
ful rendering,  though  it  may  depend  much  upon 
the  state  of  the  atmosphere  whether  bright  or 
prosaic.  It  is  evident  therefore  that  he  can  have 
little  in  common  with  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  that 
each  is  far  from  encroaching  on  the  other's  sphere. 
In  truth,  three  out  of  the  four  novelists  who 
have  been  mentioned  are  parted  from  Charlotte 
Bronte  by  a  wide  and  deep  gulf.  They  are 
objective — that  is,  they  describe  scenes  and  create 
characters  external  to  themselves  :  while  she  is 
subjective — that  is,  almost  everything  she  writes 
is  related  not  merely  artistically  but  vitally  to 
herself,  and  has  in  some  sense  been  lived  over 
by  her.  George  Eliot  is  to  a  certain  extent  in 
the  same  category  as  Charlotte  Bronte,  but  so 
wide  is  her  range  that  the  portion  of  the  work 
of  which  this  can  be  affirmed  appears  but  small 
in    comparison   with    that  which    lies   outside   of 

i6j  L 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

Charlotte's  sphere  :  she  cannot,  therefore,  be 
regarded  as  the  especial  representative  of  sub- 
jective passion.  There  is  also  strong  evidence 
of  a  desire  to  make  her  fictions  operate  upon  the 
world,  and  contribute  to  its  amelioration,  a  feeling 
entirely  absent  from  Charlotte  Bronte,  as  it  must 
be  from  every  purely  subjective  writer.  I  do 
not  think  that  George  Eliot  has  carried  it  to  any 
inartistic  length  :  but  this  is  more  than  can  be 
said  of  the  next  distinguished  novelist  upon  our 
list,  Charles  Kingsley.  Kingsley's  earliest  novels 
are  written  to  recommend  the  ideas  of  Christian 
socialism  :  his  Hypatia  and  Two  Years  Ago  are 
manifestos  of  Broad  Church  theology  ;  Westward 
Ho !  endeavours  the  revival  of  the  age  of 
Elizabeth.  All  approach  perilously  near  the 
region  of  the  tract  :  but  all  are  saved  by  the 
writer's  energy  and  marvellous  gift  of  picturesque 
description,  as  well  as  the  fine  moral  tone  and  the 
translation  of  the  ideas  of  Carlyle  into  ordinary 
speech.  They  have  this  much  in  common  with 
Charlotte  Bronte's  novels  that  they  are  works  of 
intense  passion,  but  hers  is  the  passion  of  an 
individual  and  his  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity. 
A  novelist  of  equal  genius,  but  who  appears  at 
first  sight  at  the  opposite  pole  from  Kingsley — 
Disraeli — resembles  him  in  the  extent  to  which 
he  writes  with  a  direct  purpose.  Long  before 
Charlotte  Bronte's  time  Vivian  Grey  had  been 
written  to  satirize  the  politics  of  the  day,   and 

162 


Charlotte  Bronte  in   'Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

point  out  the  possibility  of  the  formation  of  a 
new  party  :  and  Contarini  Fleming  to  idealize 
Disraeli  himself  in  the  character  of  poet,  to  which 
he  then  sincerely  thought  he  had  a  claim.  During 
the  period  of  Charlotte's  literary  activity  Disraeli 
produced  three  novels  with  the  most  unmistakable 
political  purpose,  and  therefore  not  touching 
at  all  upon  her  peculiar  domain.  Contarini 
Fleming  in  some  measure  does  so,  and  the 
contrast  of  method  is  instructive.  We  see 
Charlotte  representing  the  heroines  who  imper- 
sonate her  conception  of  herself  in  the  simplest 
manner,  with  the  least  possible  diversity  of 
circumstances  from  her  own  ;  in  a  word,  painting 
herself  as  she  really  was.  Disraeli,  on  the 
contrary,  envelops  his  childhood  with  picturesque- 
ness  and  magnificence,  places  himself  in  ideal 
surroundings  and  in  an  ideal  atmosphere,  and, 
while  not  unfaithful  to  his  own  conception  of 
his  own  character,  makes  his  environment  not 
what  it  was,  but  what  he  would  have  wished 
it  to  have  been.  This  fundamental  difference 
of  method  places  even  his  subjective  work  in 
quite  a  different  category  from  Charlotte  Bronte's. 
Borrow  presents  a  curious  combination  of 
objective  and  subjective  tendencies.  No  writer 
can  possibly  be  more  vivid  in  description,  or  more 
interested  in  things  external  to  himself:  on  the 
other  hand  his  works  are  pervaded  by  his  own 
personality,  and,  while  most  graphic  in  depicting 

163 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

salient  traits  of  character,  he  gives  us  no  whole 
man  except  himself.  In  both  these  character- 
istics he  differs  from  Charlotte  Bronte,  upon 
whom  he  can  have  exerted  no  influence.  There 
remain  two  authors  of  singular  versatility,  Bulwer 
and  Mrs.  Gaskell.  Bulwer's  passion  was  literary 
fame  ;  in  pursuit  of  this  he  accommodates 
himself  with  unrivalled  dexterity  to  the  taste  of 
the  day,  but  you  never  can  be  sure  of  having  his 
real  mind,  unless  perhaps  when  his  novels  turn 
upon  occult  studies.  He  cannot,  therefore,  be 
compared  with  Charlotte  Bronte.  The  last  great 
novelist  on  our  list,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  not  the  least  of 
whose  titles  to  fame  is  her  admirable  and  classical 
biography  of  her  heroine  Charlotte,  was,  like 
Bulwer,  though  from  different  motives,  so  versatile, 
that  it  is  hard  to  say  where  the  real  manifestation 
of  her  individuality  is  to  be  found.  All  her  books 
are  masterly,  but  no  two  are  alike.  It  is  difficult, 
therefore,  to  parallel  her  with  an  authoress  so 
thoroughly  self-consistent  as  Charlotte  Bronte. 

This  hasty  and  imperfect  review  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  chief  writers  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  period  who  have  any  claim  to  be 
accounted  her  rivals  should  at  all  events  suffice 
to  establish  that  she  occupies  a  niche  of  her  own, 
and  cannot  be  classified  with  any  of  them.  This 
is  enough  to  rescue  her  from  the  charge  of 
provincialism.  She  is  not  merely  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  particular  district,  but  occupies  a 

164 


Charlotte  Bront'e  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

place  in  the  great  Pantheon  of  English  literature 
which  but  for  her  would  have  remained  unfilled. 
If  I  were  now  writing  a  history  of  English 
literature  it  would  be  needful  to  define  this  place, 
and  vindicate  by  examples  her  right  to  hold  it. 
This  is  unnecessary  on  the  present  occasion, 
when  I  am  addressing  an  audience  well  read  in 
her  writings  and  patriotically  interested  in  them, 
and  which  has,  moreover,  frequently  had  the 
advantage  of  hearing  them  discussed  by  critics 
of  eminence.  We  may  assume  as  generally 
admitted  that  the  predominant  characteristic  of 
Charlotte  Bronte's  writings  is  Passion — whether 
the  passion  of  love  or  the  passion  of  hate,  or  local 
or  patriotic  enthusiasm,  or  any  other  by  which 
her  intense  and  indomitable  nature  might  at  the 
time  be  actuated.  None  of  her  contemporaries 
are  open  to  the  impressions  of  powerful  feeling 
in  an  equal  degree,  and  none  are  so  exclusively 
possessed  bv  them.  Her  sphere,  therefore,  while 
it  has  many  points  of  contact  with  theirs, 
especially  with  George  Eliot's,  is  nevertheless 
dissimilar.  This  is  to  say  that  she  is  original, 
and  indeed  I  can  hardly  think  of  any  writer  of 
her  day,  except  Borrow  and  Browning,  of  whom 
absolute  originality  can  be  so  unequivocally  pre- 
dicated. A  considerable  affinity  to  Byron  may 
be  traced.     Like  him  she  possessed 

a  fount  of  fiery  life 
Which  served  for  a  Titanic  strife. 

i6s 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

But  while  Byron  marred  splendid  work  by 
frequent  affectation  and  insincerity,  nothing  is 
more  characteristic  of  Charlotte  Bronte  than  her 
absolute  truthfulness.  Some  of  her  pictures, 
especially  of  the  schools  where  she  was  pupil  and 
teacher,  have  been  taxed  with  inaccuracy.  This 
may  be  the  fact,  but  none  can  doubt  that  she 
described  them  as  they  appeared  to  herself.  She 
would  not  for  the  world  have  debased  her  art  to 
a  manufacture,  or  put  pen  to  paper  in  the  absence 
of  a  definite  call.  Once,  indeed,  she  was  prevailed 
upon  to  lengthen  by  an  episode  a  novel  which 
had  fallen  short  of  the  regular  three-volume 
quantum,  but  the  episode  is  one  of  the  best  things 
in  the  book.  As  this  austere  conscientiousness 
is  one  of  her  glories,  so  it  is  correlated  with  her 
principal  shortcoming,  not  a  shortcoming  which 
in  any  way  detracts  from  the  merits  of  the  novels 
which  she  has  given  us,  but  one  which  prevented 
her  from  giving  us  many  more.  She  is  deficient 
in  invention  and  creative  imagination  :  she  can 
only  speak  of  what  she  has  realized  by  her 
personal  experience.  Hence  all  three  novels  are 
mainly  autobiographical.  She  is  indeed  fully 
capable  of  drawing  portraits  of  persons  external 
and  even  distasteful  to  herself  with  startling  effect, 
witness  the  wonderful  picture  of  Madame  Beck 
in  Villette^  but  they  must  be  people  she  has 
known,  and  who  have  come  within  her  own 
sphere.     She  cannot  create   a  character  by  sheer 

i66 


charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

force  of  imagination,  nor  can  she  devise  a  set  of 
circumstances  out  of  which  to  construct  a  story. 
The  consequence  was  a  great  limitation  in  her 
powers  of  production.  She  had  by  no  means 
worn  her  mind  out,  but  she  had  exhausted  her 
material  ;  and  as  she  would  not  condescend  with 
many  another  novelist  to  use  the  old  material 
over  again,  it  is  probable  that  even  if  her  life 
had  been  prolonged  she  would  have  written  little 
more.  If,  like  George  Sand,  while  retaining 
unimpaired  the  passion  which  first  set  her  pen 
in  motion,  she  had  been  able  to  devise  an  endless 
series  of  novel  scenes  and  incidents,  she  might, 
with  life  and  health,  have  filled  a  prodigious  place 
in  our  literature.  As  it  is,  her  praise  must  be  the 
reverse  to  have  produced  a  greater  effect  than 
almost  any  other  novelist  whose  production  is 
limited  to  three  books. 

It  is  not  easy  to  speak  of  Currer  Bell  without 
naming  Ellis  and  Acton.  Anne  Bronte  lives 
by  her  sisters  ;  a  single  lyric  reveals  the  poetess. 
Some  distinguished  critics  have  preferred  Emily 
to  Charlotte.  I  should  deprecate  the  com- 
parison :  their  genius  and  their  spheres  are 
dissimilar.  Charlotte  is  not  a  poet,  and  Emily 
is  not  an  artist.  The  apology  for  the  savage 
repulsiveness,  tempered  by  the  deepest  tender- 
ness, of  her  Wuthering  Heights  is  that  save  in 
form  it  is  a  lyric,  a  work  of  poetical  inspiration. 
It   came  to  her,  she  did  not  plan  or  scheme  it. 

167 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

The  same  is  true  of  her  better  poems,  especially 
of  her  masterpiece,  the  lines  beginning,  "  No 
coward  soul  is  mine,"  one  of  the  very  few 
examples  of  the  sublime  in  English  poetry  of 
the  Victorian  era,  and  in  intensity  of  feeling  and 
magnificence  of  expression  surpassing  every  other 
lyric  of  an  English  poetess.  Had  she  lived  and 
had  this  inspiration  continued  to  be  vouchsafed 
to  her,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  her  place  must 
have  been  high  indeed.  But  it  was  fitful  and 
capricious,  independent  of  her  own  will,  and 
might  never  have  revisited  her.  In  any  case, 
neither  with  it  nor  without  it,  would  she  have 
emulated  the  more  disciplined  genius  of  her 
sister,  any  more  than  the  latter  would  have 
rivalled  her  as  a  poetess. 

I  am  about  to  conclude  my  discourse  by 
reading  an  anecdote  of  Charlotte  Bronte  from 
a  book  which,  being  privately  printed,  is  probably 
unknown  to  you,  supplemented  by  some  reflec- 
tions and  reminiscences  by  the  writer,  a  man 
of  the  most  delightful  nature  and  the  highest 
culture.  He  is  the  late  William  Johnson  Cory, 
dear  to  some  few  as  a  poet,  appreciated  by  still 
fewer  as  an  historian,  though  without  a  rival 
in  pregnancy  and  conciseness ;  the  most  eflicient 
Eton  master  of  his  day  and  the  best  modern 
writer  of  Latin  verse  ;  the  reformer  of  King's 
College,  Cambridge,  in  conjunction  with  Henry 
Bradshaw  ;     and     who     nevertheless,     with     all 

i68 


BKONTii   WATEKFALF.,    HAWORTH    MOOR. 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

these  titles  to  distinction,  has  remained  almost 
unknown.  I  will  endeavour  to  make  him 
known  here  as  an  admirer  of  Charlotte  Bronte. 
He  says  in  the  privately  printed  book  to 
which  I  have  alluded,  the  Extracts  from  his 
Letters  and  Journals^  printed  after  his  death, 
describing  a  visit  paid  to  Haworth  in  1867  : — 

Went  to  Haworth  with  the  three  Butlers.  Glad  to 
find  Arthur  Butler  thinking  as  I  do  about  Shirley,  the  best 
of  books.  They  told  me  what  Richmond  told  them  about 
Charlotte  Bronte's  portrait.  She  was  very  shy,  and  for  two 
sittings  he  was  out  of  hope  ;  but  the  third  time  she  met  the 
Duke  of  Wellington's  servant  leaving  the  house,  which  made 
Richmond  say,  "  If  you  had  been  here  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
sooner  you  would  have  seen  the  Duke  of  Wellington." 
Whereupon  she  broke  out  into  eager  asking^about  the  Duke  ; 
and  so  the  painter  caught  the  eager  expression  given  in  his 
portrait,  of  which  I  bought  a  photograph  in  Keighley. 
When  Richmond  was  getting  on  well  with  the  portrait  she 
stood  behind  him  looking  at  it  :  he  heard  a  sob — she  said, 
"  Excuse  me — it  is  so  like  my  sister  Emily." 

Mr.  Cory  visited  the  parsonage,  which  he 
describes  as  a  miserable  homestead,  and  he 
adds  : — 

Out  of  that  prison  the  little  Charlotte  put  forth  a  hand 
to  feel  for  the  world  of  human  emotion,  I  wish  she  would 
come  back  to  us,  and  count  up  the  myriads  to  whom  she 
has  given  new  souls. 

Now  I  remember  reading  Jane  Eyre  straight  through  at 
a  sitting  in  ray  home  drawing-room,  and  again  on  the  black, 

169 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

gnarled  wreathed  rocks  of  Bude  (1850)  where  there  was  a 
lowering  stormcloud  and  a  sunset  on  a  distant  sail,  and  a 
hollow  roar  in  the  reefs,  and  the  reading  broken  off  by 
a  queer  rattle  of  shingle  which  turned  out  to  be  a  sheep 
fallen  from  the  clifF:  the  last  summer  holidays  spent  with 
my  mother. 

There  is  a  peculiar  propriety  in  Mr.  Cory's 
record  of  his  having  read  Jane  Eyre  upon  the 
cliffs  at  Bude,  for  you  will  remember  that  Charlotte 
Bronte's  mother  was  a  Cornish  woman.  I  do 
not  think,  however,  that  her  Cornish  ancestors 
were,  like  her  father's  family,  Celtic.  Much  of 
her  genius  may  be  traced  with  probability  to 
the  happy  mixture  of  blood,  connected  with 
the  environment  of  her  youth,  peculiar,  inde- 
pendent, original,  but  much  less  rough  than  Mrs. 
Gaskell  made  it  out  to  be.  I  will  not  suppress 
Mr.  Cory's  pretty  compliment  to  the  fair  sex  of 
these  parts.  *'  The  women,"  he  says,  "  talk 
most  musically."  When  he  speaks  of  having 
read  Jane  Eyre  straight  through  at  a  sitting,  we 
must  conclude  that  he  had  the  day  before  him 
when  he  began.  This  is  not  quite  my  experience. 
When  I  first  read  Jane  Eyre  my  days  were  given 
to  official  work,  and  I  could  read  only  in  the 
evening.  I  remember  how  the  book  kept  me 
up  to  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  how  I 
closed  it  at  the  end  of  that  thrilling  passage 
where  Jane  proves  to  Mr.  Rochester  that  an  evil 
thing  has  really  been  near  her  by  showing  him 

170 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  Nineteenth  Century  Fiction 

that  her  veil  has  been  torn  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom.  Fame  might  be  founded  on  this  incident 
alone  :  but  it  is  a  stronger  proof  of  Charlotte's 
genius  that  her  work  and  life  as  a  whole  should 
be  able  to  awaken  intense  interest  in  readers  so 
cultured  and  refined,  so  tender  and  manly  and 
sweet-natured  as  Mr.  Cory's  letters  and  journals 
show  him  to  have  been. 

Will  she  retain  this  power  ?  I  think  so.  It 
is  a  remark  of  Aubrey,  writing  three  quarters 
of  a  century  after  Shakespeare,  that  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  contemporaries,  frequently  preferred  to 
him  in  his  own  age,  are  already  out  of  date 
because  they  merely  depict  contemporary  manners, 
while  Shakespeare  depicts  universal  manners. 
This  is  just  what  Charlotte  Bronte  does  in  her 
far  more  limited  sphere  ;  she  gives  us  the 
emotions  which  will  be  always  true,  always  living, 
and  her  work  owes  little  or  nothing  to  the  merely 
accidental  and  temporary.  Works  which  repro- 
duce "  the  very  form  and  pressure  of  the  time," 
and  deal  with  the  questions,  momentous  as  these 
may  be,  which  principally  interest  the  time,  are 
inevitably  doomed  to  dwindle  in  attractiveness — 
although,  if  true  works  of  genius,  they  cannot 
die — until  their  abiding  worth  comes  to  be  mainly 
historical.  They  may  in  this  stage  be  compared 
to  fossils,  the  imposing  skeletons  of  grand  and 
gigantic  creatures  whose  softer  parts  have  under- 
gone decomposition  :   while  the  simply  subjective 

171 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

romance,  derived  from  a  source  of  perennial 
feeling,  reaches  posterity  like  the  pebble,  which 
the  everlasting  roll  of  Time's  ocean  has  only 
served  to  polish. 


^:J> 


172 


CHARLOTTE  &  EMILY  BRONTE- 
A  COMPARISON  AND  A  CON- 
TRAST 

By  Prof.  C.  E.  VAUGHAN,  M.A. 

An  Address  delivered  to  the  Bronte  Society  atKeighley, 
ON  January  20,    1912. 

r 


CHARLOTTE  AND  EMILY  BRONTE  :    A 
COMPARISON   AND   A   CONTRAST 

I  HAVE  called  my  lecture  this  evening  "  Char- 
lotte and  Emily  Bronte :  a  Comparison  and  a 
Contrast."  I  shall  make  no  attempt  to  keep 
the  bounds  between  the  comparison  and  the 
contrast  scrupulously  exact.  In  the  main,  how- 
ever, I  shall  begin  by  indicating  what  I  con- 
ceive to  be  the  points  of  resemblance  between 
the  sisters  ;  and  in  the  main,  I  shall  devote  the 
latter  part  of  the  lecture  to  those  points  of 
contrast  between  them  which  can  hardly  fail 
to  strike  us.  With  this  saving  condition,  let 
us  pass  at  once  to  some  points  of  resemblance 
which  suggest  themselves  at  the  first  glance. 

Both  sisters — we  shall  feel  this  the  moment  we 
enter  on  a  serious  study  of  their  writings — both 
sisters  strike  the  note  of  passion.  And  I  think 
we  shall  never  do  complete  justice  to  their 
genius  unless  we  bear  in  mind  that  they  were 
among  the  first  English  novelists  to  do  so. 
Think  of  the  great  names  among  the  novelists 
who  had  gone  before.     Think   of  Fielding   and 

175 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

of  Sterne.  Think  of  Miss  Burney  and  Miss 
Austen.  Think  of  the  utter  lack  of  passion  in 
the  whole  generation  of  Early  Victorian  novelists, 
until  Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  appeared. 
Think,  above  all,  of  the  two  novelists  who 
were  at  the  height  of  their  fame  when  the 
sisters  published  their  first  works,  Thackeray 
and  Dickens.  Then,  and  then  only,  you  will 
see  what  an  enormous  service  they  rendered  to 
the  novel  in  this  country  by  striking  this  note 
of  passion  ;  and  striking  it  with  a  depth  and 
clearness  that  has  seldom  been  equalled,  and 
still   more  seldom,  if  ever,  surpassed. 

In  order  to  do  justice  to  their  precursors,  one 
has  indeed  to  remember  that  among  them  were 
two  men  who  came  near  to  forestalling  the 
Brontes  in  this  matter ;  and  that  these  two 
men  arc  among  the  greatest.  They  are  Richard- 
son and  Scott,  In  Clarissa  you  will  hear  some- 
thing not  far  removed  from  the  note  of  passioti. 
It  would  be  a  gross  injustice  to  deny  it.  Yet, 
after  all,  the  fate  of  Clarissa,  great  as  is  the 
power  with  which  it  is  brought  before  us,  is 
rather  the  fate  of  passive  suffering  than  the 
fate  of  a  woman  under  the  spell  and  doom  of 
passion.  She  is  the  victim  of  wrongs  done  by 
others.  She  has  not  the  will  and  the  sweep  of 
energy  that  we  associate  with  passion.  In  the 
Bride  of  Lammermoor^  again  you  have  some- 
thing that  yet   more    nearly    approaches   what    I 

176 


THE   RYDIXGS,   BIRSTALL. 
Thornl'ield  Hall  of  Jane  Eyre. 


OAKWELL  HAM,,    lUKSTALL. 
Fiddhead  of  Shirley. 


charlotte  and  Kmily  Bronte :  a  Comparison 

should  call  the  unmistakable  note  of  passion. 
But,  even  there,  you  will  find  a  difference  which 
it  is  not  well  to  overlook.  Scott,  as  you 
might  have  expected  from  his  nature  and  genius, 
confines  himself  entirely  to  action.  In  him 
there  is  nothing  of  that  subtle  analysis,  that 
power  of  tracing  the  inmost  workings  of  the 
soul,  which  is  conspicuous  in  the  Brontes,  par- 
ticularly in  Charlotte.  There  we  see,  we  follow 
step  by  step,  the  growth  and  swell  of  passion, 
its  conflict  with  the  abiding  instincts  of  the 
soul.  We  watch  the  storm  sweep  over  the  very 
being  of  the  hero  or  heroine  and  rush  them  to 
suffering  and  despair.  In  Scott  all,  or  some, 
of  this  may  perhaps  be  implied.  It  may,  if  the 
imagination  of  the  reader  be  keen  and  observ- 
ant, without  much  difficulty  be  possibly  inferred. 
But  it  is  certainly  not  in  the  picture  which  he 
actually  paints.  It  is  not  in  the  story  as  he 
tells  it.  With  the  Brontes,  on  the  other  hand, 
at  any  rate  with  Charlotte,  it  forms  the  theme 
of  the  whole  work.  And  what  writer,  I  would 
like  to  know — what  writer,  at  any  rate  in  our 
own  country — can  be  compared  with  them  for 
supreme  mastery  of  this  inner  note  of  passion  ? 
Then  again,  there  is  in  both  sisters  what  I 
think  we  should  all  agree  to  call  the  lyric  cry. 
But  it  takes  a  different  form  in  each.  In  Emily 
Bronte  it  is  diffused  through  the  whole  story. 
In    Charlotte,  it   gathers   itself  together    in    one 

177  M 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

or  two  magnificent  scenes.  Emily,  no  doubt, 
sometimes  allows  it  to  flash  upon  us  in  a  single 
phrase,  a  single  image,  or  chain  of  images,  as 
in  those  where  the  heroine  of  fVuthering  Heights 
paints  her  identity  of  soul  with  HeathcliflF.  The 
passage  will  be  in  the  memory  of  many  of  us, 
but  there  can  be  no  harm  in  repeating  it  :  "I 
love  him  .  .  .  because  he's  more  myself  than  I 
am.  Whatever  our  souls  are  made  of,  his  and 
mine  are  the  same  :  and  Linton's  is  as  different 
as  a  moonbeam  from  lightning,  or  frost  from  fire. 
My  love  for  Linton  is  like  the  foliage  in 
the  woods  :  time  will  change  it,  I'm  well  aware, 
as  winter  changes  the  trees.  My  love  for 
HeathclifF  resembles  the  eternal  rocks  beneath  : 
a  source  of  little  visible  delight,  but  necessary. 
I  am  HeathclifF !  he's  always,  always  in  my 
mind  :  not  as  a  pleasure,  any  more  than  I  am 
always  a  pleasure  to  myself,  but  as  my  own 
being." 

Still,  such  passages  are  rare.  And  in  Emily 
Bronte  the  lyric  note  is  more  commonly  to  be 
heard  as  an  undertone  than  as  a  melody.  With 
Charlotte,  it  is  exactly  the  reverse.  And  when 
we  think  of  the  lyric  cry  in  her,  we  think, 
I  suppose,  first  and  foremost,  of  two  or  three 
great  scenes  :  the  scene,  for  instance,  in  which, 
when  her  marriage  has  been  dashed  into  pieces 
before  her  eyes,  Jane  Eyre  shuts  herself  in  her 
room  and  fights  out  her   duty  with   herself  and 

178 


charlotte  and  'Emily  Bronte :  a  Comparison 

God  alone  ;  the  scene  where,  like  a  hunted 
hare,  she  takes  refuge  upon  the  summer  moor  ; 
the  scene  where,  months  afterwards,  when  her 
faith  wavers  and  she  is  about  to  yield  to  the 
insistence  of  her  unworthy  suitor,  the  voice  of 
Rochester  suddenly  thrills  upon  her  ear,  calling 
"  Jane  !  Jane  !  "  we  again  recall,  largely,  the 
rapture  of  Louis  Moore  as  he  looks  out  upon 
the  wind-swept  radiance  of  the  moon,  or  the  lyric 
passion  which  reigns  through  the  closing  pages 
of  Villette — surely  amongst  the  most  magnificent 
prose  lyrics  ever  conceived  by  the  imagination 
of  a  poet.  I 

Then  again,  common  to  both  sisters  Is  what 
I  would  call  the  cry  of  revolt.  And  that,  like 
the  two  qualities  of  which  I  have  already  spoken, 
was,  so  far  as  the  novel  is  concerned,  a  new 
thing  in  the  literature  of  England.  Yet  here 
again,  between  the  two  the  difference  is  very 
marked.  Emily  is  a  rebel  so  convinced  that  it 
never  enters  her  mind  to  argue  about  the  matter. 
She  takes  revolt  for  granted,  and  there  is 
no  more  to  be  said.  Charlotte,  on  the  other 
hand — perhaps  less  sure  of  her  ground,  certainly 
less  extreme  in  her  conclusions — stands  by  us 
at  every  step  to  justify  and  explain  it.  Emily 
tacitly  assumes  a  world  in  which  Society  with  its 

*  Time  forbade  me  to  say  anything  of  the  Bronte  Poems. 
I  deeply  regret  this,  as  it  inevitably  results  in  an  injustice 
to  Emily. 

i;9 


Charlotte  Bronte :   a   Centenary  Memorial 

conventions  is  nothing,  in  which  the  individual, 
the  passionate  individual,  stands  alone,  unques- 
tioning and  unquestioned.  That,  I  think,  is  the 
conception  we  can  hardly  fail  to  recognize 
throughout  the  whole  of  Wuthering  Heights. 
Turn  to  Jane  Eyre  or  Villette^  and  you  will  find 
something  curiously  different.  There  we  have 
the  rebel  in  the  very  torrent  and  tempest  of 
revolt.  Be  it  Rochester  or  Jane  Eyre,  be  it  Lucy 
Snowe  or  Paul  Emanuel,  they  are  brought  before 
us  in  the  very  act  of  tearing  down  the  conven- 
tions, of  breaking  through  the  barriers,  which 
public  opinion — the  opinion  of  the  sluggish  and 
the  timorous — has  set  up.  And  the  writer  exults 
in  showing  us  how  those  barriers  give  way 
before  that  strong  will ;  how  nothing — nothing 
but  the  counteraction  of  the  same  will — can 
check  hero  or  heroine  in  the  fulfilment  of  their 
purpose. 

It  has  sometimes  been  denied  that  we  can 
speak  of  either  sister — and  in  particular  of  Char- 
lotte— as  being  in  revolt  against  the  conventions 
of  Society.  I  must  say  that,  to  my  mind,  that 
denial  rests  upon  a  very  curious  misapprehension. 
It  is,  I  think,  impossible  to  deny  that  they  are 
both  in  revolt  against  the  conventions  of  Society 
unless,  in  a  very  arbitrary  way,  you  limit  those 
conventions  down  to  one — to  the  marriage  law. 
Against  the  marriage  law  it  is,  of  course,  perfectly 
true  that   Charlotte,   at   any   rate,  is  in  no  sense 

1 80 


Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a   Comparison 

in  revolt.  The  whole  scheme  of  Jane  Eyre,  its 
central  idea,  would  rise  in  protest  against  any 
such  belief  as  that.  But  surely  it  is  a  delusion, 
and  a  very  dull  delusion,  to  say  that,  unless  it 
be  against  the  marriage  law,  nothing  shall  count 
with  us  for  revolt.  It  is,  I  suppose,  nothing  but 
the  example  of  the  French  novel  that  has  led 
us  to  put  such  a  strangely  narrow  construction 
upon  the  term  "  revolt."  And  it  seems  to  me 
abundantly  clear  that  when  we  throw  aside 
all  such  arbitrary  and  accidental  interpretations, 
both  sisters  are,  and  it  is  the  glory  of  both 
sisters  to  have  been,  eternal  rebels.  Both  are 
fired  by  the  conviction  that  the  individual  is 
here,  that  each  soul  is  here  on  earth,  not  to 
follow  the  prescriptions  and  the  rules  laid  down 
for  it  by  others,  but  to  obey  the  best 
promptings  of  its  own  nature,  and,  when  they 
clearly  point  in  one  direction,  entirely  to  dis- 
regard all  the  traditional  barriers,  all  the  human 
conventions,  that  would  drive  it  in  another.  And 
it  is  the  force  with  which  both  of  them  gave 
utterance  to  that  conviction,  the  imaginative 
genius  with  which  they  clothed  it,  that  is  one 
of  the  chief  glories  of  the  Brontes. 

I  need  not  waste  words  in  proving  this  of 
Emily.  But  do  you  remember  some  very  strik- 
ing words  that  Charlotte  wrote  to  her  friend, 
Mr.  Williams,  one  of  the  firm  who  published 
for  her  ?     They  are  as  follows  :  "  If  you  knew 

i8i 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

the  dreams  that  absorb  me,  the  fiery  imagina- 
tion that  at  times  eats  me  up  and  makes  me 
feel  Society  as  it  exists  wretchedly  insipid,  then 
you  would  pity  and,  I  dare  say,  despise  me." 
Let  us  hope  that  Mr.  Williams  neither  pitied 
nor  despised  her.  There  was  certainly  no  need. 
But  I  will  ask  you — with  these  words  in  your 
ear,  with  all  that  corresponds  to  them  in  the 
novels  present  to  your  mind — can  you  doubt 
for  a  moment  that  among  the  faiths  which  lay 
nearest  to  the  heart  of  Charlotte  Bronte — as  it 
was  also  among  those  which  fired  the  imagination 
of  Emily — was  the  faith  that  under  certain 
circumstances — circumstances  which  at  one  time 
or  other  are  bound  to  confront  the  life  of  each 
one  of  us — rebellion  against  the  established  code 
is  the  first  duty,  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of 
social  custom  the  one  thing  needful  }  It  may 
be  a  right  faith,  or  a  wrong  faith.  For  myself, 
I  believe  that,  in  the  main,  it  is  a  right  one. 
But  that  it  was  the  faith  of  Charlotte  and  Emily 
Bronte,  I  have  no  doubt  whatsoever. 

Up  to  this  moment  I  have  been  speaking  of 
what  may  seem  to  be  rather  abstract  matters. 
And  there  has  been  little,  perhaps  too  little,  to 
remind  you  that  these  two  great  women  were, 
above  all,  great  imaginative  writers,  great 
novelists  and  great  artists.  That  being  so,  it 
is  only  what  we  should  expect  when  we  find 
that   all    these    characteristics   of  which    I    have 

182 


Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a   Co/Wparison 

been  speaking  to  you  hitherto  are  summed  up 
and  gathered  together,  and  crystallized,  in  the 
characters  which  move  through  the  pages  of 
their  stories.  The  note  of  passion,  the  lyric  cry, 
the  cry  of  revolt — all  these  are  embodied,  are 
they  not  ?  in  the  figures  of  Catherine  and  Heath- 
clifF,  of  Rochester  and  Jane  Eyre,  of  Lucy 
Snowe  and  Paul  Emanuel.  They  are  so  again, 
though  certainly  under  a  less  marked  and  obvious 
form,  in  the  figure  of  Shirley.  And  it  is  the 
greatness  of  these  two  writers  that  there  is 
nothing  vague  or  abstract  about  their  creations  ; 
that  everything  did  present  itself  to  them  in  a 
concrete  shape ;  that  all  these  ideas,  instincts, 
convictions  which  were  surging  through  their 
minds — all  could  be,  and  all  were,  embodied  by 
them  in  figures  of  flesh  and  blood. 

So  far  as  this  applies  to  Emily  Bronte,  1  think 
the  statement  justifies  itself  No  one  surely 
can  read  Wuthering  Heights  without  admitting 
it  on  the  spot.  It  is  none  the  less  true  of  the 
finest  work  of  Charlotte.  It  is  true  at  any 
rate  of  Jane  Eyre,  and  it  is  true  of  Villette. 
There,  too,  it  is  no  abstract  thing  with  which 
we  are  concerned.  There,  too,  it  is  round  the 
central  figures  of  her  story  that  the  whole  of 
our  interest  is  gathered. 

Think  for  a  moment  how  new  and  how 
original  was  the  conception  at  the  time  when 
it    was   first    flashed    upon   this   world.     Think 

183 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

what  would  have  been  the  effect  if  the  imaginary 
characters  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking  had 
suddenly,  in  very  flesh  and  blood,  been  shown 
into  an  Early  Victorian  drawing-room.  I 
imagine  that  the  horsehair  chairs  and  sofas 
would  at  once  have  disjointed  themselves,  that 
the  walls  would  have  been  shattered  in  pieces 
and  the  ceilings,  with  all  their  prismatic  pend- 
ants, have  flown  to  the  four  quarters  of  the 
sky.  They  are  figures  of  a  larger  build  and 
of  a  bigger  make,  they  are  souls  of  more  fire 
and  energy  than  those  to  which  the  men  and 
women  of  that  day  were  accustomed.  And  this 
again  is  one  of  the  glories  of  the  Brontes.  Here 
again,  here  above  all,  they  throw  all  conven- 
tion to  the  winds.  They  refuse  to  follow  the 
beaten  track  of  fashion  and  prescription,  to 
paint  men  and  women  as  dwarfed  and  mangled 
by  social  pressure  and  tradition.  They  have 
courage  to  present  human  nature,  not  as  they 
were  told  to  present  it,  not  as  they  were  taught 
to  conceive  it,  not  even  as  experience,  their 
own  very  limited  experience,  might  have  led 
them  to  suppose  it  ;  but  as  they  knew  it — I 
would  rather  say,  as  they  divined  it — in  their 
own  heart,  their  own  imagination,  their  own 
unconquerable  will. 

This  courage  is  splendid  in  itself.  It  is  still 
more  precious  in  its  imaginative  results.  For  as 
we  read,  we  feel  that  a  breath    from   the  outer 

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Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte :  a   Comparison 

world,  a  breeze  from  the  moors  and  the  eternal 
hills,  is  sweeping  over  us  ;  we  know  that  a  new 
vigour  and  a  new  force  has  come  into  our  lives, 
or  might  come  if  we  were  only  wise  enough  to 
make  it  our  own.  I  reckon  this  one  of  the 
greatest  services  a  writer  can  render  to  the 
world. 

But,  as  you  are  well  aware,  it  is  just  this 
pronounced  conception  of  character  which  has 
called  down  the  thunder  of  the  critics.  It  gave 
great  offence  in  certain  quarters  at  the  time ; 
it  has  continued  to  do  so  ever  since.  The 
critics,  even  the  friendly  critics,  were  disposed 
to  find  great  fault  with  Charlotte  Bronte  for 
painting  character  in  this  fashion.  George 
Henry  Lewes,  for  instance,  who  ought  to  have 
known  better,  took  her  roundly  to  task  on  this 
account.  "  Why,"  he  asked  in  effect,  "  why  do 
you  go  outside  all  the  limits  of  your  own 
experience }  why  do  you  insist  on  creating  men 
and  women  out  of  your  own  heart  and  your 
own  soul?  why  do  you  not  follow  in  the  steps 
of  that  great  woman,  Miss  Austen  }  why  don't 
you  observe  the  wise  precepts  which  beam  from 
her  mild  eyes  } " 

Incidentally,  I  may  say  that  the  last  phrase 
seems  to  me  one  of  the  worst  judged,  the  most 
misleading,  I  have  ever  read.  Have  you  ever 
seen  a  portrait  of  Miss  Austen  }  Have  you  ever 
looked  into  those  "  mild  eyes "  .''     If  you   have, 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

you  will  have  seen  the  most  cutting  pair  of 
eyes  ever  created.  I  can  assure  you  that,  when 
I  look  at  them,  I  am  left  to  wonder  how  it  was 
that  any  man,  woman,  or  child  ever  ventured 
to  open  their  lips  in  the  owner's  presence.  So 
much  for  the  mildness  of  Miss  Austen's  eyes, 
and  the  sharpness  of  Mr.  Levves's. 

Well,  Charlotte  Bronte,  as  might  have  been 
predicted,  would  have  none  of  such  preposterous, 
such  impertinent  advice.  She  roundly  declared 
that  every  author  has  not  only  the  right,  but 
the  duty,  to  follow  the  bent  of  his  own  genius  ; 
and  she  hinted  pretty  plainly  that,  in  her  own 
conviction,  however  much  she  might  be  inferior 
to  Miss  Austen  in  observation,  in  delicacy  of 
touch,  in  the  artist's  power  of  adapting  means  to 
ends,  yet  in  imagination,  in  poetry,  in  all  the 
higher  and  deeper  qualities  of  genius,  the  posi- 
tions were  reversed.  And  however  deeply  we 
may  admire  Miss  Austen — within  her  own 
limits  it  is  impossible  to  admire  her  too  deeply 
or  too  warmly — -can  we  doubt  that  Charlotte 
Bronte  was  in  the  right } 

Here  are  two  paragraphs  from  the  letter  in 
which  she  thrust  the  well-meant  patronage  of 
George  Lewes  indignantly  aside  : — 

"  Imagination  is  a  strong,  restless  faculty 
which  claims  to  be  heard  and  exercised.  Are 
we  to  be  quite  deaf  to  her  cry  and  insensate 
to   her  struggles  ?     When   she   shows  us   bright 

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Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte :  a   Comparison 

pictures,  are  we  never  to  look  at  them,  or  try 
to  reproduce  them  ?  And  when  she  is  eloquent 
and  speaks  rapidly  and  urgently  in  our  ear,  are 
we  not  to  write  to  her  dictation  ?  .  .  .  When 
authors  write  best,  or  at  least  when  they  write 
most  fluently,  an  influence  seems  to  waken  in 
them  which  becomes  their  master ;  which  will 
have  its  own  way  ;  putting  out  of  view  all 
behests  but  its  own,  dictating  certain  words  and 
insisting  on  their  being  used,  whether  vehement 
or  measured  in  their  nature  ;  new-moulding 
characters,  giving  unthought-of  turns  to  inci- 
dents, rejecting  carefully  elaborated  old  ideas, 
and  suddenly  creating  and  adopting  new  ones." 
In  yet  another  letter  to  Mr.  Williams,  she 
sums  up  the  whole  matter  in  a  dozen  words  : 
"  I  must  have  my  own  way  in  the  matter  of 
writing."  That,  I  think,  is  the  last  word  upon 
the  subject.  It  is,  it  ought  to  be,  the  last  word 
from  the  side  of  the  author.  It  ought  to  be, 
if  it  is  not,  the  last  word  to  the  conscience  of 
the  critic.  Genius  has  its  own  law,  and  is 
bound  to  follow  it — that  is  the  first  principle 
on  which  the  author  ought  to  act  ;  it  is  the 
first  principle  by  which  the  critic  ought  to  judge. 
And  it  was  because  Charlotte  Bronte  had  the 
courage  of  her  own  convictions,  because  she 
was  resolved  that  nothing  should  make  her  turn 
aside  from  the  dictates  of  her  own  genius  that 
she  has  cast,  and  has  deserved  to  cast,  so  strong 

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Charlotte  BrontS :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

a  spell  upon  the  heart  and  the  imagination  of 
her  readers.  From  Emily  we  have  no  such 
declaration.  Her  portion,  during  her  short  life 
as  an  author,  was  not  criticism,  but  neglect.  Yet 
had  she  been  challenged  on  the  subject,  had  she 
received  the  same  stupid  advice  as  that  inflicted 
on  her  sister,  we  all  know  how  she  would  have 
met  it.  At  the  first  breath,  she  would  have 
brushed  it  aside  with  a  gesture  still  more  con- 
temptuous than  Charlotte's. 

I  have  said  that  this  complaint  against  Char- 
lotte— the  complaint  is,  if  you  please,  that  she 
was  too  original — is  sometimes  renewed  in  our 
own  day.  Once  more  the  critics  are  there  to 
tell  us  that  she  ought  to  have  followed,  that 
she  ought  to  have  anticipated,  such  or  such 
models  in  her  craft ;  that  she  ought  to  have 
treated  her  theme  like  Richardson,  that  she 
ought  to  have  treated  it  like  Balzac  ;  that  she 
ought  to  have  pointed  the  way  to  Gustave  Flau- 
bert, that  she  ought  to  have  pointed  it  to 
Meredith.  Now  I  must  decline  to  stand  by  while 
a  great  writer  is  thus  draped  in  the  white  sheet. 
Once  start  upon  this  crooked  path,  once  adopt  a 
notion  so  crude  as  that  one  writer  should  take 
another  for  his  model,  and  heaven  only  knows 
where  you  are  going  to  stop.  You  will  find 
yourself  driven  to  ask  Milton,  "  Why  did  you 
not  follow  Shakespeare  ?  "  or  Heine,  "  Why  do 
you  not  follow  Goethe  }  "  or  Boccaccio,  '*  Why  do 

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charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a  Comparison 

you  not  follow  Dante?"  And  then,  when  you 
have  got  to  the  end  of  your  list,  I  see  no  reason 
why  you  should  not  begin  it  again,  by  the  simple 
process  of  turning  the  tables  upon  Shakespeare, 
Goethe,  Dante,  and  as  many  other  authors  as 
your  memory,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  may 
supply.  The  whole  thing  rests,  in  fact,  upon  an 
absolute  misconception — I  would  rather  say,  a 
fatal  ignorance — of  the  very  first  principles  upon 
which  both  authorship  and  criticism  are  based. 

The  first  thing  the  critic  has  to  make  up  his 
mind  to  is  that  genius  is  its  own  law.  And  if 
he  makes  bold  to  tell  a  man  or  woman  of  genius 
that  they  are  to  follow  rules  and  copy  models, 
he  not  only  makes  himself  ridiculous — that  may 
be  a  small  loss,  it  may  easily  be  a  positive  gain — 
but,  unless  he  can  count  upon  resistance  as 
steadfast  as  that  of  the  Brontes,  he  runs  the  risk 
of  being  listened  to  and  of  throttling  genius  at 
its  birth.  It  is  fortunate  for  us  that  Charlotte 
Bronte  had  the  wisdom  and  firmness  to  thrust 
aside  all  such  impertinent  suggestions  and  to 
trust  her  own  genius  against  the  world. 

It  is,  of  course,  perfectly  true  that,  writing  as 
she  did  out  of  her  own  genius  and  her  own  soul, 
she  was  sometimes  betrayed  into  unfortunate 
mistakes.  But  that  was  only  when  she  strayed 
into  a  field  that  was  not  hers,  and  essayed  a  task 
for  which  her  own  genius  did  not  fit  her.  Thus, 
when  she  set  herself,  as  she  did  in  Jane  Eyre,  to 

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charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

paint  the  manners  of  smart  Society — the  manners 
of  what  Horace  Walpole  called  the  "  great 
vulgar " — she  painted  something  which  was  not 
in  the  least  like  the  original  and,  so  far,  must 
be  admitted  to  have  failed.  Fortunately,  this  is 
but  one  short  episode  in  the  book,  and  the  core 
of  the  novel  remains  entirely  untouched.  The 
critic,  however,  is  equal  to  the  occasion.  He 
catches  hold  of  that  one  episode,  he  sees  nothing 
but  that  single  blemish,  and  cheerily  pronounces 
that  the  genius  which  could  have  been  guilty  of 
such  an  error  must  have  been  radically  unsound. 
What  may  be  the  nature  of  such  a  critic's  genius, 
I  will  refrain  from  asking.  I  would  really  rather 
not. 

Seeing  that  so  much  has  been  made  of  this 
particular  error,  I  would  wish,  if  I  may,  to  say 
a  word  by  way  of  defence.  I  cannot,  and  will 
not,  say  that  I  do  not  consider  it  an  error. 
But  I  will  say  that  I  hold  it  to  have  been 
magnified  beyond  all  reason;  and  I  think  there 
may  be  some  instruction  in  tracing  it  to  its 
source. 

In  judging,  as  she  clearly  did  judge,  the  tone, 
the  fashions  and  many  of  the  personages  of  what 
we  call  high  society  to  be  inherently  vulgar, 
Charlotte  Bronte  was  certainly  in  the  right.  But 
when  she  came  to  paint  these  things,  she  made 
the  rather  fatal  mistake  of  painting  the  wrong 
sort    of   vulgarity;    of   attributing    to    them    a 

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Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a   Comparison 

vulgarity  which  may  be  better  or  worse  than 
what  you  actually  find  in  them,  but  which, 
whether  better  or  worse,  is  certainly  of  a  very 
different  kind.  However,  even  the  mistakes  of 
a  great  writer  often  throw  an  instructive  light 
upon  its  genius.  And  this  particular  error  brings 
us  back  once  more  to  the  fact  that,  among  her 
many  other  qualities,  Charlotte  Bronte  was 
essentially  a  novelist  of  revolt. 

In  painting  the  high  society,  the  county 
families  of  Jane  Eyre^  I  suppose  there  was  a 
certain  ferment  of  personal  mortification  working 
in  her  mind.  She  was,  so  to  speak,  taking 
vengeance  for  the  humiliations  she  had  passed 
through  during  the  months  ^in  which  she  acted 
as  governess  in  families  of  pretension.  And 
perhaps  there  is  a  little  too  much  of  that  spice  of 
personal  pique  to  be  altogether  pleasant.  I  think 
there  is.  But  it  is  very  characteristic  that  she 
should  have  taken  hold  of  that  part  of  her 
experience  and  have  worked  it  into  her  novel 
in  this  way.  It  shows  on  the  one  hand  that, 
keen  as  she  was  to  observe,  her  observation  was 
too  much  at  the  mercy  of  her  personal  feelings, 
above  all  of  her  antipathies.  And  if  one  instance 
of  this  is  not  enough,  we  may  cite  her  handling 
of  Mr.  Brocklehurst  in  Jane  Eyre,  and  of  the 
curates  in  Shirley^  as  a  second  and  a  third.  It 
proves  on  the  other  hand,  if  further  proof  were 
needed,    how    wrong-headed    was    the   advice    of 

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charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

Lewes  when  he  strove  to  bind  her  down  to 
observation,  for  which  her  talent  was  so  limited 
and  uncertain,  and  to  frighten  her  away  from 
the  work  of  creation  in  which  she  has  seldom 
been  approached. 

Yet  the  very  defect,  of  which  this  is  an 
instance,  is  only  the  other  side  of  a  quality  which 
lies  at  the  very  heart  and  centre  of  her  genius. 
Figures  like  Blanche  Ingram  may  be  mere 
parodies  of  what  they  were  meant  to  be.  But 
at  least  they  faithfully  represent  the  feelings  of 
the  woman  who  had  chafed  under  the  vulgar 
contempt  of  those  who  thought  themselves  her 
betters,  but  who,  for  all  who  had  eyes  to  see, 
were  immeasurably  beneath  her.  They  may  be 
false  as  portraits  of  others.  But,  in  a  sense  which 
you  will  readily  catch,  they  are  a  true  reflection 
of  Charlotte  Bronte  herself,  and  of  the  type  of 
woman  she  best  loved  to  take  as  heroine  of  her 
tales.  And  the  creation  of  that  type,  let  us  never 
forget  it,  was  among  her  most  marked  and 
original  contributions  to  the  novel  of  her  day 
and  country. 

Charlotte  Bronte,  I  suppose,  was  the  first 
English  novelist  to  bring  upon  the  stage  a  figure 
long  familiar  to  the  French  novelist,  the  femme 
incomprise^  the  misunderstood  woman ;  the  woman 
who  has  great  thoughts  in  her  soul,  who  is 
capable  of  great  deeds  and  of  deep  sympathies, 
but  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  meets  with 

192 


i^^ 


-  X 
7- 

<    S 


Charlotte  and  E/nily  Bront'^ :  a   Comparison 

little  but  scorn  and  neglect  from  the  world  and 
those  who  slavishly  accept  the  judgments  of  the 
world.  We  know  that  Charlotte  had  strong 
feelings  on  this  matter.  We  know  that  she 
reproached  her  sisters  with  clinging  to  the  old 
tradition  that  the  heroine  of  a  novel  is  necessarily 
born  with  beauty  and  all  kinds  of  feminine 
attractions.  I  will  take,  she  said,  a  heroine 
who  has  no  looks  and  no  attraction,  and  I  will 
show  that  she  can  be  made  as  interesting,  as 
full  of  charm,  as  any  doll  in  the  nursery 
of  fiction.  And  one  almost  hears  Charlotte, 
as  she  writes,  saying  to  herself,  or  rather 
speaking  through  the  lips  of  her  heroine  to 
her  own  employers  of  the  past  :  "  I  am  little 
and  puny,  and  insignificant  in  comparison  with 
you.  Quite  true  ;  in  the  body  1  cut  a  very 
poor  figure  by  your  side.  But,  if  you  could 
look  within,  you  would  find  a  spirit,  before 
which  yours  would  shrivel  like  a  parched  scroll, 
and  you  would  know  that  I  dwell  habitually  in 
regions  where  you  dare  not  soar,  not  even  for 
an  instant."  There  is  all  that — is  there  not  ? — 
in  the  mood  and  temper  which  is  stamped  so 
strongly  on  Jane  Eyre^  but  which,  it  is  well 
to  remember,  fades  out  of  her  later  novels — 
those  written  when  her  character  had  softened 
and  her  genius  mellowed.  You  will  find  little 
of  it  in  Shirley,  some  stray  touches  to  the 
contrary  ;  yoq  will  find  stiil  less  of  it  in  Villette. 

193  N 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

So  far,  I  have  dealt  mainly  with  the  qualities 
which  the  two  sisters  have  in  common.  I  now 
pass  to  speak  very  shortly  of  the  points  in  which 
they  differ.  And  first  and  foremost,  it  is,  I 
suppose,  clear  to  all  of  us  that  of  the  two,  the 
spirit  of  Emily  is,  beyond  doubt,  the  more 
intense.  This  is  her  great  glory.  I  know  of 
nothing  in  the  English  novel  so  intense,  so 
absolutely  the  spontaneous  creation  of  a  strong 
and  fiery  spirit,  as  the  characters  of  Catherine 
and  HeathclifF.  It  is  futile  to  say  that  nothing 
like  them  has  ever  been  seen,  or  ever  will  be 
seen,  upon  the  earth.  How  do  we  know  ?  It 
is  far  more  probable  that  beings,  who  under 
favouring  conditions  might  have  grown  to  some- 
thing of  their  form  and  stature,  have  existed, 
now  and  again,  from  the  beginning,  and  will 
continue  to  do  so  till  the  end.  All  that  Emily 
has  done  is  to  supply  such  conditions  and  let 
them  work  their  will  upon  natures  who,  without 
them,  would  have  remained  the  starved  and 
stunted  creatures  that  are  within  the  experience 
of  us  all.  This  is  the  privilege  of  the  creative 
artist ;  the  method  by  which  the  supreme  poets 
have  achieved  some  of  the  greatest  of  their 
triumphs — the  method  by  which  Milton  created 
Satan  :  and  ^schylus,  Clytemnestra,  and  Victor 
Hugo,  Gilliatt  or  Jean  Valjean.  Emily  Bronte 
is  not  on  the  same  scale  as  these  great  figures, 
but  she  may  claim  the  same  defence. 

194 


Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a   Comparison 

Emily,  then,  is  more  intense  in  spirit  than  her 
sister,  but,  after  all,  Charlotte  follows  not  very 
far  behind.  We  will  not  look  beyond  the 
English  novel ;  and  in  the  English  novel,  where 
will  you  find  anything  comparable,  in  this  matter, 
to  Wuthering  Heights^  unless  in  such  figures  as 
Jane  Eyre  and  Rochester,  as  Paul  Emanuel  and 
Paulina  ?  For  myself,  I  should  wish  to  add 
Shirley  and,  in  her  inspired  moments,  Lucy 
Snowe  also  to  the  list.  In  all  these  there  is  a 
softened  echo — and  the  echo  is  not  so  soft  either 
— of  the  cry  that  rings  from  Catherine  and 
Heathcliff.  The  difference  is  one  not  of  kind 
but  of  degree.  The  two  sisters  inhabit  the 
same  world,  though  they  may  dwell  in  different 
regions  of  it ;  they  have  the  freedom  of  the 
same  city,  though  their  homes  may  be  in  different 
quarters.  It  is  the  difference  not  between  the 
vegetation  of  the  temperate  zone  and  that  of 
the  tropics,  but  between  the  vegetation  imme- 
diately under  the  equator  and  that  of  a  degree  or 
two  farther  north  or  a  degree  or  two  farther  south. 

And  I  dwell  upon  this  because  I  think  that 
Charlotte  has  often  perhaps  hardly  had  justice 
done  to  her  in  the  matter.  She  invites,  she 
challenges  comparison  with  her  sister  ;  and  on 
that  comparison  every  man  with  eyes  in  his 
head  must  admit  that,  in  this  particular  point, 
Emily  is  the  stronger ;  I  will  not  say  far 
stronger,  but  yet  stronger  and  yet  more  intense. 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

I  take  a  second  point  :  There  is,  -  I  think,  a 
very  marked  contrast,  a  very  clear  distinction, 
between  the  ways  in  which  the  two  sisters  worked 
upon  their  materials,  in  which  they  went  about 
to  create  the  various  characters  of  their  stories. 
Emily  created  purely  and  simply  out  of  her  own 
soul  and  her  own  genius.  Observation  counted 
foi'  nothing  at  all  ;  it  is  the  spontaneous  outflow 
of  her  genius,  or  it  is  nothing.  Now  with  Char- 
lotte, although  there  are  obvious  affinities  to  this 
process,  still  there  is  no  less  obvious  difference. 
One  gathers — and  I  think  the  evidence  is  pretty 
clear  upon  the  point — that  she  was  most  at  her 
ease  when  she  could  take  the  first  hint  from 
some  one  she  had  seen  ;  from  some  man  or 
woman  \vith  whom  she  had  been  brought  into 
contact,  if  only  for  a  moment ;  from  some  human 
being  on  whom  her  eye  had  actually  rested. 
The  most  marked  instance  of  this — and  it  is 
absolutely  authentic  —  is  her  creation  of  the 
character  of  Helston,  the  "  old  Cossack "  who 
rules  the  roost  in  Shirley.  She  tells  us  herself 
that  she  saw  the  old  Cossack  once  only  with  her 
bodily  eyes  when  she  was  at  the  mature  age  of 
ten.  As  it  was  at  the  consecration  of  a  church, 
he  can  hardly  then,  I  imagine,  have  been  per- 
forming Cossack  duties.  But  the  curve  of 
his  nose  and  the  eagle  glance  of  his  eye  struck 
home  at  once  to  her  imagination  ;  and  out  of 
that  fleeting  vision,  a  vision  that  can  hardly  have 

196 


Chariotte  and  Emily  Brontt' :  a  Comparison 

lasted  for  more  than — well,  sermons  were  long 
in  those  days,  shall  we  say  two  hours? — she 
constructed  that  extraordinarily  vivid  character, 
that  masterpiece  of  a  clerical  dragoon  :  and  all 
this,  close  on  thirty  years  after  she  had  seen 
him. 

So  again  we  are  told,  and  it  certainly  seems 
probable,  that  the  greatest  of  all  her  triumphs, 
Paul  Emanuel  in  Villette^  is  wrought  out  of  hints 
— hints  faint  and  fugitive  in  the  extreme — drawn 
from  her  old  instructor  in  Brussels,  M.  Heger. 
That  would  seem  to  be  almost  beyond  doubt. 
But,  if  I  had  met  M.  Heger,  I  am  perfectly 
certain  that  I  at  any  rate  should  not  have  seen, 
and  I  greatly  doubt  whether  a  single  soul  but 
Charlotte  Bronte  would  have  seen,  the  amazing 
combination  of  qualities  which  make  Monsieur 
Paul  one  of  the  most  striking  and  surely  quite 
the  most  lovable,  of  all  the  characters  in  English 
fiction  ;  and  all  this,  remember,  was  the  pure 
act  of  the  genius  of  Charlotte,  working  upon 
materials  which  in  amount  were  absolutely 
beggarly  and  which  to  no  eye  but  hers  would 
have  meant  anything  at  all. 

I'o  start  from  a  hint  of  experience  or  obser- 
vation, to  let  her  own  instincts  freely  work  upon 
it,  her  own  imagination  transform  it  out  of  all 
knowledge — this,  then,  was  the  distinctive  method 
of  Charlotte  Bronte,  the  peculiar  channel  along 
which    her    genius    most   naturally   flowed.     The 

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charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

most  pathetic  instance  of  this,  1  think,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  character  of  Shirley.  You  will 
all  remember  that.  She  took  her  sister  Emily 
and  created  out  of  her,  not  what  Emily  was 
in  her  brief  life  of  sorrow  and  suffering  and 
anguish,  but  what  she  might  have  been,  what 
she  would  have  been  if  her  circumstances  had 
been  less  grievous,  if  an  ampler  atmosphere  had 
been  around  her,  if  there  had  been  some  gleams 
of  sunshine  to  break  the  almost  unrelieved  gloom 
and  sadness  of  her  days.  That  surely  is  very 
beautiful.  And  what  monument  to  the  great 
spirit  who  had  been  snatched  from  her  side 
could  have  been  nobler  than  this  tribute,  this 
vision  of  what  might  have  been,  that  Charlotte 
thus  laid  upon  her  grave  } 

I  take  one  other  point  which  can  hardly  fail 
to  suggest  itself  to  us,  as  we  consider  the  work 
of  the  two  sisters.  In  width  of  genius,  in  extent 
and  range  of  powers,  I  think  it  must  be  admitted 
that  Charlotte  was  the  richer  of  the  two.  This, 
I  think,  is  partly  because,  as  we  have  just  seen, 
observation  enters  far  more  largely  into  her  work 
than  into  Emily's.  And,  when  used  as  her  genius 
prompted  her  to  use  it,  when  used  not  as  a  limit 
imposed  from  without,  but  as  a  suggestion  to 
set  her  imagination  working  from  within,  this 
gave  a  variety  and  richness  to  her  creations,  a 
command  of  many  different  types  of  character, 
which  apparently  was  denied  to  Emily,  and  which 

198 


charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a   Comparison 

I  doubt  whether   Emily  would   have   taken  even 
at  a  gift. 

But,  closely  connected  with  this,  there  is 
another  gift  which,  above  all  others,  went  to 
widen  the  range  of  Charlotte.  I  mean  the  gift 
of  humour.  In  her  latest  work  at  any  rate,  in 
Villette,  she  showed  herself  to  possess  a  fund  of 
humour,  of  which  her  earlier  books  had  offered 
comparatively  little  promise,  of  which  there  is  no 
trace  in  the  solitary  work  of  Emily,  and  to  which 
I  do  not  believe  that  Emily  could  ever  have 
attained.  You  may  say  that  Joseph  Smith  in 
Wuthering  Heights  is  a  humorous  character. 
So  he  is,  but  surely  not  in  the  same  rare  and 
deep-reaching  sense  in  which  we  say  this  of 
Paul  Emanuel.  The  elements  are  in  themselves 
coarser,  and  they  are  more  coarsely  mingled. 
There  is  nothing  in  him  of  the  fire  and  radiance, 
nothing  of  the  human  kindliness  and  far-flashing 
tenderness  which,  by  their  weird  contrasts,  move 
us  at  once  to  tears  and  laughter  in  the  master- 
piece of  Charlotte.  And  I  can  hardly  conceive 
that  Emily  had  it  in  her  to  create  a  character 
like  this. 

The  little  Professor  in  Villette  is,  no  doubt, 
the  supreme  instance  of  Charlotte  Bronte's 
humour.  But  he  is  by  no  means  the  only  one. 
The  character  of  Hortense  Moore,  in  the  early 
part  of  Shirley^  is  unfortunately  little  more  than 
a   sketch.     But,    sketch   though    it  be,  it  is  full 

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charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

of  humour  ;  humour  of  the  genial  kind,  the 
kind  that  we  associate  with  Fielding,  and  even 
with  Shakespeare  ;  or,  to  take  a  name  less  im- 
posing, the  kind  in  which  Mrs.  Gaskeil,  on  her 
more  modest  scale,  was  mistress  unsurpassed. 
And  I  shall  never  cease  to  regret  that,  after 
chalking  that  brilliant  sketch  in  her  open- 
ing pages,  Charlotte  should  afterwards,  for 
exigencies  of  her  own,  have  allowed  the  kindly 
but  rigid  champion  of  all  the  domestic  decencies 
to  fade  silently  out  of  the  story,  and  we  see 
her  no  more. 

I  return,  however,  to  the  figure  of  Monsieur 
Paul,  as  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  which 
human  genius,  in  this  field,  has  ever  won. 
"Where,  I  should  like  to  know,  where  shall  we 
find  anything  that  goes  more  swiftly  and  more 
deeply  to  the  heart  than  the  figure  of  this  little 
man,  that  strange  blending  of  reason  and  un- 
reason, of  strength  and  of  sweetness,  of  wilful- 
ness and  self-abasement,  of  fury  and  of  tender- 
ness, who  slowly  works  himself  into  our  affections 
but,  when  once  he  has  found  his  home  there,  will 
never  again  be  surrendered,  so  long  as  we  live  } 

Finally,  one  word  must  be  said  about  the  style 
of  these  two  writers.  And  here  again  we  are 
met  with  a  curious,  not  to  say  a  startling, 
contrast.  The  style  of  Emily,  as  we  all  know, 
is  severely  simple.  Nothing  could  be  more  so. 
It  is  the  rarest  thing  for  her  to  allow  herself  an 

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charlotte  and  Emily  Brontt' :  a   Comparison 

image,  a  set  picture,  of  any  kind.  Pictures  there 
are  in  plenty  which  burn  themselves  upon  the 
imagination.  But  you  will  find,  I  think,  that 
they  commonly  do  so  in  virtue  of  the  sheer  power 
and  vividness  with  which  the  circumstances  are 
conceived  and  rendered,  that  they  commonly  owe 
little  to  tone  or  colour,  still  less  to  any  literary 
elaboration  of  style.  So  it  is  in  the  passage  to 
which  the  Chairman  '  referred  in  his  opening 
words  :  the  passage  describing  the  haunted  dream 
of  the  man  who  tells  the  story,  near  the  beginning 
of  fVuthering  Heights.  So  it  is  in  a  score  of 
other  passages,  on  which  it  would-be  a  pleasure 
to  linger,  if  time  allowed.  Once  and  again, 
however,  Emily  breaks  through  the  rigid  limits 
which  she  would  seem  habitually  to  have  laid 
upon  herself.  And  then  at  one  stroke  she  shows 
herself  a  master.  An  image,  perhaps  a  succession 
of  images,  is  flashed  upon  our  vision  ;  and  the 
very  austerity  of  the  setting  makes  it  all  the 
more  radiant  and  unforgettable.  One  instance 
of  this  is  offered  by  the  words  of  Catherine 
about  HeathclifF,  which  I  have  already  quoted. 
Another,  and  it  is  the  last  to  which  I  will  refer, 
is  that  which  describes  Heathcliff  as  he  stands 
beneath  the  window  of  the  woman  he  loved, 
waiting  in  motionless  agony  until  her  tortured 
spirit  should  at  last  be  set  free.  The  servant,  you 
will    remember,  goes   out  and    finds   him  there, 

'■   Mr.  Halliwell  SutclifFc  was  Chairman  at  this  meeting. 
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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

the  strong  man  propped  against  a  tree  in  the 
dripping  rain  ;  and  she  knows  he  has  been  stand- 
ing there  like  a  stone  for  hours,  because  there 
were  two  ouzels  flying  backwards  and  forwards 
in  front  of  him,  gathering  material  for  their 
nest,  his  presence  making  no  more  difference  to 
them  than  if  he  had  been  a  stock  or  bush,  like 
the  rest.  That  is  a  magnificent  image,  and  it 
is  one  that  none  but  a  great  poet  could  have 
conceived,  none  but  a  great  stylist  have  cut  and 
fashioned.  It  is,  however,  an  exception,  and, 
generally  speaking,  I  am  sure  you  will  agree  with 
me  that   the  style  of  Emily  is  severely  simple. 

The  style  of  Charlotte,  on  the  other  hand,  i 
think  it  must  be  said,  is  anything  but  simple. 
She  has,  in  fact,  a  strong  vein — I  do  not  use 
the  word  in  any  unpleasant  sense — of  literary 
rhetoric  and,  as  you  know,  the  critics  have 
fastened  upon  this  and  have  counted  it  for  an 
unpardonable  offence.  For  myself  I  must  say 
that  I  think  these  objections  are  very  finicking, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  for  some  years  past 
— I  hope  the  blight  is  at  last  beginning  to  blow 
over — there  has  been  a  tendency  to  judge  style 
by  a  false  standard.  The  only  qualities  of  style 
that  some  critics  are  prepared  to  recognize  are 
such  qualities  as  urbanity  and  plainness  and 
simplicity.  Now,  I  am  not  going  to  deny  the 
merits  of  all  these,  but  after  all — and  it  comes 
back  to   the   same   train   of  thought  which    has 

202 


Charlotte  and  Emily  Brontt^ :  a  Comparison 

already  confronted  us  in  considering  the  Brontes' 
method  of  handling  character — after  all,  steadi- 
ness, demureness,  propriety  may  be  very  excellent 
qualities  in  a  duenna,  a  governess,  or  a  valet,  but 
they  are  not  exactly  the  qualities  which  1  should 
be  most  anxious  to  find  in  a  writer  of  genius, 
which  I  should  be  apt  to  consider  the  surest 
test  of  genius.  Anyhow  it  is  quite  certain  that 
Charlotte  Bronte  would  have  none  of  them.  It 
is  quite  certain  also,  though  I  doubt  whether 
this  has  been  sufficiently  recognized,  that  she 
was  in  no  small  measure  under  the  spell  of  a 
very  great  figure  in  contemporary  literature,  the 
greatest  writer  of  the  time,  the  French  poet, 
Victor  Hugo. 

Now,  I  will  not  deny  that,  with  all  his  genius, 
Victor  Hugo  is  in  some  ways  a  perilous  model. 
I  will  not  deny  that,  in  following  this  model, 
Charlotte  sometimes  allowed  herself  to  be  be- 
trayed into  extravagance.  But  for  all  that,  it 
remains  true  that  Victor  Hugo  himself,  in  style 
as  in  all  other  qualities  of  the  poet,  was  a  Titan, 
and,  although  Charlotte  may  not  have  been  his 
equal — I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  she  was 
his  equal — still  that  in  no  way  proves  that  she 
too,  in  style,  as  in  many  other  points  of  supreme 
importance,  was  not  a  commanding  figure,  a  spirit 
of  genius.  I  am  confident  that  she  was,  and  in 
style,  as  in  matters  (if  indeed  there  be  such)  yet 
more  vital,  this  declares   itself,  as  I  must  think, 

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charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Ce?jtenary  Memorial 

beyond  dispute.  This  is  true,  above  all,  of  those 
passages  where  it  is  evident  that  she  herself  was 
deeply  moved.  Then  all  that  betrays  labour  and 
effort,  all  that  elsewhere  wakes  the  suspicion  that 
she  is  striving  for  effect,  vanishes  upon  the  instant 
and  we  hear  the  very  music,  the  fiery  melody  of 
her  soul.  I  might  appeal  to  a  score  of  passages 
scattered  through  the  pages  of  Jane  Eyre  and 
Shirley^  but  I  would  recall  to  your  memory  as 
the  crowning  instance  of  it,  the  closing  passage 
of  Villette.  You  will  remember  the  circum- 
stances. The  heroine  has  betrothed  herself  to 
Paul  Emanuel,  whom  she  passionately  loves. 
Immediately  after  the  betrothal,  Emanuel  has 
had  to  leave  her  on  a  self-denying  errand  of  three 
years  in  the  service  of  others,  and  at  the  moment 
when  the  book  closes,  the  three  long  years  of 
separation  are  at  last  over  and  Lucy  is  awaiting 
her  lover's  return.  For  the  sake  of  explaining 
one  allusion,  I  may  remind  you  that  the  cry  of 
the  Banshee,  the  spirit  that  moves  in  the  storm, 
has  been  heard  once  before  by  the  heroine,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  story,  and  that  on  that 
occasion  it  had  been  the  warning  of  an  approach- 
ing death. 

The  sun  passes  the  equinox  ;  the  days  shorten,  the  leaves 
grow  sere  ;  but — he  is  coming. 

Frosts  appear  at  night ;  November  has  sent  his  fogs  in 
advance  ;  the  wind  takes  its  autumn  moan  ;  but — he  is 
coming. 

204 


Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  :  a   Comparison 

The  skies  hang  full  and  dark — a  rack  sails  from  the  west  ; 
the  clouds  cast  themselves  into  strange  forms — arches  and 
broad  radiations  ;  there  rise  resplendent  mornings — glorious, 
royal,  purple  as  monarch  in  his  state  ;  the  heavens  are  one 
flame  ;  so  wild  are  they,  they  rival  battle  at  its  thickest — 
so  bloody,  they  shame  victory  in  her  pride.  I  know  some 
signs  of  the  sky  ;  I  have  noted  them  ever  since  childhood. 
God  watch   that  sail  !     Oh  !  guard  it  ! 

The  wind  shifts  to  the  west.  Peace,  peace.  Banshee — 
"keening"  at  every  window!  It  will  rise — it  will  swell — 
it  shrieks  out  long  :  wander  as  I  may  through  the  house  this 
night,  I  cannot  lull  the  blast.  The  advancing  hours  make 
it  strong  :  by  midnight,  all  sleepless  watchers  hear  and  fear 
a  wild  south-west  storm. 

That  storm  roared  frenzied  for  seven  days.  It  did  not 
cease  till  the  Atlantic  was  strewn  with  wrecks  :  it  did  not 
lull  till  the  deeps  had  gorged  their  full  of  sustenance.  Not  till 
the  destroying  angel  of  tempest  had  achieved  his  perfect 
work,  would  he  fold  the  wings  whose  waft  was  thunder — 
the  tremor  of  whose  plumes  was  storm. 

Peace,  be  still  !  Oh  !  a  thousand  weepers,  praying  in 
agony  on  waiting  shores,  listened  for  that  voice,  but  it  was 
not  uttered — not  uttered  till,  when  the  hush  came,  some 
could  not  feel  it  :  till,  when  the  sun  returned,  his  light  was 
night  to  some  I 


That  is  a  highly-wrought  passage.  I  am  not 
concerned  to  deny  it.  On  the  contrary,  I  insist 
on  it  and  I  exult  in  it.  And  I  will  tell  you  that, 
in  the  whole  range  of  English  prose,  there  are 
few  passages  which  I  would  sooner  have  written 
than  that.  And  I  say  this  not  only  because  the 
style,  as  a  mere  arrangement  of  words,  is 
supremely    beautiful ;    but   also,    and    far   more, 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

because  it  reflects,  and  reflects  with  the  mastery 
that  genius  alone  could  give,  that  unforced,  that 
mysterious,  blending  of  sorrow  and  of  triumph, 
which  constitutes  the  very  essence  and  spirit  of 
great  tragedy. 

Neither  in  drama  nor  in  novel  do  I  know  of 
anything  which  seems  to  me  more  accurately, 
more  consummately,  to  reflect  that  spirit,  as 
Milton  for  instance  understood  it,  than  the  clos- 
ing passage  of  Villette.  In  its  whole  tone  and 
in  its  whole  tenor,  it  reminds  me  of  that  blended 
cry  of  anguish  and  exultation  which  rings  out 
at  the  end  of  his  own  supreme  drama,  Samson 
Jgonistes  : — 

Nothing  is  here  for  tears,  nothing  to  wail 
Or  knock  the  breast ;  no  weakness,  no  contempt. 
Dispraise  or  blame  ;  nothing  but  well  and  fair. 
And  what  may  quiet  us  in  a  death  so  noble. 

Yes  ;  "  calm  of  mind,  all  passion  spent  " — those 
are  the  words,  the  last  words  of  Milton  himself, 
which  at  once  leap  into  our  thoughts  ;  that  is  the 
tone,  the  deep  organ  tone,  which  peals  upon  our 
ears  in  the  closing  passage  of  Villette. 

a  E.  f^AUGHAN. 


206 


CHARLOTTE   BRONTE    IN 
LONDON 

By   Sir  SIDNEY  LEE,   D.Litt.,  LL.D. 

An   Address   delivered  to   the  Bronte    Society,   at 
Harrogate,  on  January  23,   1909. 

Reprinted  from    the    "  Cornhill  Magazine "   by  permission    of 
Messrs.  Smith,  Elder  ^  Co. 


To  face  p,  208, 


CHARLOTTE    BRONTE    IN    LONDON 

For  nearer  forty  than  thirty  years  I  have  been 
a  whole-hearted  admirer  of  Charlotte  Bronte's 
genius.  I  have  a  distinct  memory  of  reading 
Jane  Eyre  as  a  boy.  The  weird ness  of  the 
mystery  and  the  fiery  glow  of  the  language 
worked  like  magic  on  my  youthful  mind,  and 
the  impression    has  never  faded  from  me. 

Nor  did  my  juvenile  enthusiasm  for  Charlotte 
Bronte  stop  with  her  work.  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
sensitive  pen  taught  me  the  grey  pathos  of  the 
novelist's  domestic  distresses,  which  had  a  gloomy 
fascination  for  my  early  thought.  In  my  young 
days,  long  before  the  Bronte  Society  was  con- 
templated, I  made  a  solitary  pilgrimage  to 
Haworth  ;  I  drained  a  glass  to  Charlotte  Bronte's 
memory  at  the  Black  Bull  Inn,  sat  there  in  the 
ill-starred  Branwell's  chair,  and  wandered  in 
Charlotte  Bronte's  footsteps  across  the  windy 
moor.  I  well  remember  how  my  interest  was 
stimulated  by  reading  on  their  first  appearance  Mr. 
Swinburne's  impassioned  '*  Note  "  and  Sir  Wemyss 
Reid's  sober  monograph,  both  of  which  came  out 

209  O 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

in  1877.  I  make  no  claim  to  have  kept  abreast 
of  the  vast  sequel  of  critical  and  biographical 
literature  which  has  since  circled  round  Charlotte 
Bronte's  head.  I  respect  the  untiring  labours 
of  recent  explorers  ;  I  have  essayed  no  excava- 
tions on  my  own  account.  My  old  enthusiasm 
has  been  checked  neither  by  independent  research 
nor  by  close  study  of  the  ever-expanding  com- 
mentary. Zeal,  which  is  untutored  by  the  new 
learning,  may  seem  a  poor  credential  for  one 
who  speaks  to  a  band  of  learned  disciples.  In 
arrest  of  judgment  on  what  may  appear  pre- 
sumption, I  offer  two  pleas  of  justification. 

In  the  first  place,  I  happen  to  be,  for  the  time 
being,  through  the  indulgence  of  my  colleagues, 
the  chairman  of  the  Trustees  of  Shakespeare's 
Birthplace  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  Comparison 
between  Shakespeare  and  Charlotte  Bronte  is 
profitless.  I  merely  urge  that  Shakespeare's 
Birthplace  Trust  has  in  a  very  general  sense 
an  aim  in  common  with  the  Bronte  Society. 
Both  institutions  endeavour  to  keep  alive  national 
interest  in  all  that  survives  of  two  homes  of 
genius.  The  problem  of  genius  is  insoluble, 
and  speculation  has  as  yet  failed  to  account  for 
the  miracle  of  its  birth.  It  comes  into  being  in 
most  unexpected  places,  more  often  in  the  cottage 
than  in  the  palace,  more  often  in  the  house  of 
the  poor  parson  than  in  the  mansion  of  the 
rich   merchant.     Its    manifestations  are  rare  and 

210 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

mysterious.  But  with  all  emphasis  should  it 
be  said  that,  at  whatever  hearth  it  take  living 
shape,  it  is  to  the  spiritual  benefit  of  men  and 
women  to  sanctify  the  place.  It  is  good  for 
every  human  being  to  recognize  the  obligation 
to  reverence  genius,  and  that  sense  of  reverence 
will  always  be  stimulated — at  any  rate  in  matter- 
of-fact  minds,  which  are  in  the  majority — by 
preserving  haunts  which  genius  has  illumined. 
Haworth  and  Stratford-on-Avon  may  well  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  breath,  because  the  care 
locally  bestowed  on  surviving  memorials  of  their 
native  heirs  of  genius  draws  visitors  to  both 
places  from  afar.  The  Bronte  Society  and  the 
Trustees  of  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  engage  in 
cognate  work,  in  the  work  of  quickening  the 
national  reverence  for  inspired  writers.  I  am 
glad  of  the  opportunity  of  offering  a  greeting 
to  the  Guardians  of  the  Bronte  Museum  from 
the  Trustees  at  Stratford-on-Avon. 

My  second  justificatory  plea  descends  to  a 
somewhat  lower  plane  of  argument.  On  March 
31st  next,  fifty-four  years  will  have  passed  away 
since  Charlotte  Bronte  died.^  The  number  of 
persons  who  saw  her  face  to  face  is  now  small ; 
her  intimate  associates  are  now  dead.  Those 
who  can  boast  acquaintance  with  her  at  second 
hand,  who  have  heard  of  her  from  her  personal 
friends,  are  happily  still  numerous.  Many  beside 
*  Written  January  23,  1909. 
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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

myself  have  learnt  something  of  her  from  those 
who  spoke  with  her  and  grasped  her  hand. 
But  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  enjoy  through 
great  part  of  twenty  years  close  relations  with 
one  who  not  merely  presided  over  Charlotte 
Bronte's  short  feast  of  fame,  but  was  the  uncon- 
scious model  of  the  most  attractive  of  all  the 
full-length  portraits  of  men  in  her  great  gallery. 
Mr,  George  Smith,  Charlotte  Bronte's  publisher, 
closed  a  long  and  honoured  life  nearly  eight 
years  ago.  His  publishing  activities  filled  near 
six  decades.  Charlotte  Bronte's  friendly  relations 
with  him  synchronized  with  the  first  decade 
only ;  my  relations  belonged  to  the  last  two. 
An  amply  filled  interval  of  thirty  years  and 
upwards  divides  the  publication  of  Jane  Eyre 
from  the  planning  of  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography.  But  Mr.  Smith's  powers  of  memory 
throughout  his  career  were  alert  and  vivid. 
In  the  comparatively  recent  period  of  my 
association  with  him,  I  gathered  much  from 
him  of  his  early  experience.  Nor  did  his  vigour 
know  change  or  decay  in  his  later  years.  In 
all  essential  features  he  was,  I  am  persuaded,  the 
same  manly,  keen-minded,  sympathetic  figure 
in  my  day  as  in  Charlotte  Bronte's.  I  therefore 
believe  that  I  may  without  immodesty  bring 
some  personal  knowledge  and  impressions  of 
my  own  to  bear  on  those  classical  episodes  in 
the  story   of  Charlotte    Bronte's   life   and   work 

212 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

in    which    Mr.  George  Smith  played  a  foremost 
part. 

Another  friend  of  mine  who  saw  Charlotte 
Bronte  and  talked  with  her  is  the  daughter  of 
the  great  novelist,  Thackeray.  Lady  Ritchie, 
Thackeray's  daughter,  is  still  in  all  the  vigour 
of  a  sympathetic  personality,  which  speaks 
illuminatingly  of  her  father's  genius.  Concern- 
ing the  impressions  which  Charlotte  Bronte  gave 
and  received  when  in  London,  I  can  cite  testimony 
which  I  owe  to  two  first-hand  witnesses.  Lady 
Ritchie  and  Mr.  George  Smith.  There  are  no 
higher  authorities  on  the  topic.  I  have  no 
secrets  to  divulge.  In  all  its  main  features  the 
story  of  Charlotte  Bronte  in  London  has  often 
been  told  before.  But  it  has  features  of  perennial 
interest,  and  perhaps  I  may  be  able  to  tell 
it  again  in  a  somewhat  differently  refracted 
light. 

Much  has  been  written  by  Charlotte  Bronte's 
biographers  of  her  friendship  with  Mr.  George 
Smith,  her  publisher.  Less  has  been  said  of 
the  place  which  that  incident  fills  either  in 
Mr.  Smith's  biography  or  in  literary  history. 
Yet,  to  take  the  last  aspect  first,  it  throws 
a  very  broad  and  healthy  light  on  an  im- 
portant tract  of  literary  territory.  I  have 
elsewhere  styled  Mr.  Smith's  association  with 
Charlotte  Bronte  "  a  publishing  idyll."  It  is 
rare    that    the  epithet   *' idyllic  "    figures    in    the 

213 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

joint  chronicles  of  publishing  and  authorship. 
Publishers  and  authors  are  usually  held  to  be 
linked  together  by  no  tie  more  sentimental  than 
desire  to  make  money  out  of  one  another.  There 
are  notable  exceptions ;  but  experience  bears 
witness  that  few  publishers  and  authors  of  emin- 
ence have  throughout  their  working  days  been 
bound  together  in  firm  unbroken  links  of  amity 
and  trustfulness.  It  is  a  common  failing  on  the 
part  of  publishers  and  authors  to  regard  each 
other  as  mutual  foes  and  preys.  Yet  the  facts 
of  Charlotte  Bronte's  connection  with  Mr.  Smith, 
her  publisher,  show  with  convincing  harmony  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  publisher's 
or  the  author's  vocation  to  set  them  at  variance. 
The  conditions  of  amity  may  be  difficult  of  attain- 
ment. But  my  present  parable  plainly  points  the 
moral  that,  given  on  the  one  hand  a  publisher 
of  high  principle,  of  alert  human  sympathy,  of 
capacity  to  appreciate  great  literature,  and  given 
on  the  other  hand  an  author  of  genius,  of 
modesty,  of  shrewdness,  of  frankness,  and  of 
honesty,  there  is  no  room  for  any  sentiment 
between  the  two  save  genuine  regard. 

The  manner  in  which  Charlotte  Bronte  first 
made  Mr.  Smith's  acquaintance  is  too  well-worn 
a  topic  to  merit  repetition  here.  But  for  the 
sake  of  clearness  a  brief  reference  must  be  made 
to  the  episode.  Everybody  knows  how  Charlotte 
Bronte  and  her  two  younger  sisters,  while  they 

214 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

were  in  their  teens,  filled  reams  of  paper  with 
poems  and  novels.  Surviving  specimens  show 
a  stilted  juvenility  of  the  vaguest  promise.  The 
domestic  griefs  of  adult  years  stimulated  rather 
than  slackened  the  three  ladies'  literary  energies, 
but  their  first  youth  seems  to  have  passed  before 
the  ambition  seized  them  to  see  themselves  in 
print.  It  was  not  till  1846,  when  Charlotte  was 
thirty  years  old,  that  she  and  her  sisters  com- 
missioned a  London  publisher  to  publish  at  their 
own  expense  a  first  volume — a  collection  of  poems. 
The  book  had  no  success.  But  the  sisters  had 
tasted  blood,  and  they  now  each  offered  a  novel 
to  a  London  firm.  The  aim  of  Charlotte's  sister 
took  eff"ect.  Wuthering  Heights  and  Agnes  Grey 
were  accepted.  But  her  own  eff^ort  of  The 
Professor  was  rejected  without  thanks.  The 
failure  did  not  daunt  her  pertinacity.  Five  times 
she  re-addressed  her  manuscript  to  London 
publishers,  only  to  meet  with  as  many  rebuffs. 
A  seventh  trial  bore  different  fruit.  The  ill- 
fated  manuscript  reached  a  sympathetic  har- 
bourage in  the  office  of  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  of 
65  Cornhill.  There  it  attracted  the  notice  of 
the  firm's  reader,  Mr.  Smith  Williams,  a 
thoughtful  critic,  a  student  of  fine  taste. 
Williams  detected  the  promise  of  The  "Professor^ 
and,  while  declining  its  publication,  invited  with 
kindly  encouragement  another  specimen  of  the 
author's   work.     Jane   Eyre    was  despatched    011 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

August  24,  1847.  The  result  is  universally 
known. 

The  manuscript  fascinated  Smith  Williams, 
Mr.  Smith  read  it  one  Sunday  from  end  to  end 
in  the  little  study  of  his  mother's  house  at 
Westbourne  Place.  It  absorbed  him  from  early 
morning  till  late  at  night.  He  could  not  tear 
himself  from  it  to  keep  the  day's  engagements  or 
even  to  take  his  meals.  The  book  was  quickly 
sent  to  press.  Within  a  few  weeks,  on  October 
16,  1847,  Charlotte  Bronte's  genius  was  revealed 
to  the  world. ^ 

Few  will  need  to  be  reminded  that  Charlotte 
Bronte  addressed  the  firm  under  the  masculine 
pseudonym  of  "  Currer  Bell,"  and  represented 
herself  as  a  man  in  all  her  early  correspondence. 
From  the  first  Mr.  Smith  saw  through  the 
disguise.  His  shrewd  instinct  convinced  him 
that  "  Currer  Bell,  Esq.,"  was  a  woman. 

In  the  early  months  of  1848  some  friendly 
correspondence    passed  between   Mr.    Smith   and 

'  Mr.  Smith  has  noted  the  small  circumstance  that 
Charlotte  Bronte  in  sending  to  his  firm  the  manuscript  of 
Jane  Eyre  apologized  for  her  inability  to  prepay  at  Haworth 
the  cost  of  carriage.  She  asked  the  firm  to  let  her  know  the 
amount  which  should  be  charged  on  delivery,  and  promised 
to  remit  the  sum  in  postage  stamps.  The  simple  request 
showed  innocent  anxiety  lest  the  author's  high  hopes  might 
be  thwarted  by  a  trifling  accident,  and  points  to  obsolete 
perils  of  communication  between  writers  living  in  remote 
places  and  London  publishers. 

316 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

Charlotte  Bronte  in  her  assumed  name,  but  they 
did  not  meet  till  July,  nine  months  after  the 
publication  of  Jane  Eyre.  The  immediate  cause 
of  the  meeting  need  only  be  briefly  indicated. 
Charlotte  Bronte  began  Shirley  very  soon  after 
she  had  finished  Jane  Eyre.  At  the  same  time 
her  sister  Anne  had  just  completed  her  second 
novel,  The  Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall,  and  was 
arranging  to  publish  it  under  the  accepted 
pseudonym  of  "  Acton  Bell,"  with  Mr.  Newby, 
the  publisher  of  her  first  book,  Agnes  Grey.  Mr. 
Newby  informed  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.  of  an 
unfounded  suspicion  that  Acton  and  Currer  Bell 
were  one  person.  Charlotte  Bronte  deemed  it 
a  point  of  honour  to  prove  their  separate 
identities.  Suddenly  she  resolved  that  she  and 
her  sister  Anne  should  reveal  themselves  in  person 
to  Mr.  Smith  in  London.  They  arrived  late  one 
Friday  night  in  July  1848,  and  next  morning 
presented  themselves  at  65  Cornhill.  Mr.  Smith 
was  busily  occupied,  and  was  for  a  moment 
puzzled  by  the  intrusion.  Charlotte  drew  from 
an  envelope  inscribed  "  Currer  Bell,  Esq.,"  a 
letter  which  she  declared  that  the  firm  had  sent 
her.  Mr.  Smith  asked  with  some  coolness  what 
was  a  woman's  title  to  a  communication  which 
the  firm  had  addressed  to  a  man.  The  needful 
explanation  followed,  and  there  and  then  was 
formed  that  chivalric  friendship  which  only 
death  terminated. 

217 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

A  visit  to  London  was  always  for  Charlotte 
Bronte  a  stirring  venture.  PVom  girlhood,  long 
before  she  made  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
city,  the  name  thrilled  her  with  a  sense  of 
mysterious  wonder.  Reports  of  its  splendours 
at  once  attracted  and  repelled  her  youthful  mind. 
It  was  her  Babylon,  her  Nineveh,  her  ancient 
Rome.  When  her  friend,  Ellen  Nussey,  spent 
a  few  days  there  in  1834,  Charlotte's  letters 
vibrated  vicariously  with  excitement  over  the 
dread  experience.  Ellen  wrote  carelessly  of  the 
first  sight  of  the  capital.  Charlotte  in  reply 
confessed,  by  way  of  rebuke,  "astonishment"  and 
'*  awe "  at  the  imagined  marvels  of  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  and  Westminster  Abbey.  The 
mention  of  St.  James's  Palace  filled  her  with 
"  intense  and  ardent  interest."  The  thought  of 
meeting  heroes  like  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  Daniel  O'Connell  in  the 
London  streets  stirred  her  deepest  feelings. 
At  the  same  time  she  was  femininely  inquisitive 
about  the  Court  and  its  ceremonies.  Amid  the 
dithyrambics  with  which  she  plied  her  fortunate 
friend  on  her  first  London  sojourn,  she  asked 
with  a  comical  bathos  for  "  the  number  of 
performers  in  the  King's  military  band."  The 
smallest  details  of  London  life  moved  her  eager 
curiosity. 

London  was  indeed  a  word  to  conjure  with 
among   all  the   dwellers  in    Haworth  parsonage. 

21S 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

The  dissolute,  art-loving  brother  Branwcll  craved 
in  boyhood  for  a  sight  of  the  metropolis  of  art  and 
sport.  He  gratified  it  for  a  few  unlucky  months 
at  the  end  of  1835,  after  studying  at  home  under 
his  sister's  eyes  every  thoroughfare  marked  on 
the  map  of  the  City.  Charlotte's  conception  of 
London  was  first  put  to  the  test  of  experience  in 
February  1842,  when  she  was  twenty-six.  On 
her  way  with  her  sister  Emily  to  M.  Heger's 
school  at  Brussels,  she  then  spent  her  first  night 
and  day  in  London.  Her  father  accompanied 
them.  The  three  visitors  stayed  at  an  old- 
fashioned  tavern  in  an  alley  off  Paternoster  Row, 
at  the  Chapter  Coffee  House,  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  City,  within  view,  through  a  narrow 
passage,  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  That  object  of 
her  early  awe  with  its  chimes  and  its  dome — '*  a 
solemn  orbed  mass,  dark  blue  and  dim " — 
dominated  on  her  arrival  her  mind  and  heart. 
With  passionate  impressiveness  she  twice 
described  her  first  nocturnal  sensations  of  St. 
Paul's,  in  The  Professor^  and  again  in  fuller  detail 
in  Villette.  Next  morning  "  the  spirit  of  this 
great  London  "  roused  her  to  ecstasy.  "  At  a 
bound,"  she  said,  she  got  into  the  heart  of  City 
life.  She  dared  the  perils  of  crossings  with  a 
light  heart.  The  West  End,  the  parks,  the  fine 
squares  which  she  knew  better  at  a  later  date 
left  her  cold.  But  the  earnestness  of  the  City 
held  her  spellbound.     "  Its  business,  its  rush,  its 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

roar  were   such    serious   themes  and   sights   and 
sounds." 

Glimpses  of  London  even  more  fleeting  were 
caught  during  the  next  two  years.  She  slept 
again  in  the  City  on  her  return  from  Brussels  to 
Haworth  in  the  autumn  of  1842.  On  her  second 
visit  to  Brussels  early  next  year  (1843)  she  drove 
straight  from  Euston  Railway  Station  to  London 
Bridge  Wharf  and  spent  the  night,  an  unwelcome 
passenger,  on  the  Ostend  packet,  an  incident 
which  she  vividly  sketched  in  The  Professor. 
Nor  does  her  stay  in  London  seem  to  have  been 
prolonged  beyond  a  night  and  a  day,  when  she 
finally  quitted  Brussels  for  Haworth  at  the 
extreme  end  of  the  year  1843.  However  great 
its  passing  fascination  at  this  period  of  her  life, 
she  found  no  further  opportunity  of  personal 
scrutiny.  London  was  still  a  hazy  dream  of 
glorious  possibilities  when  she  paid  her  memorable 
visit  to  Mr.  Smith  at  Cornhill  in  July  1848. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  her  sojourn  lasted  for 
more  nights  than  one.  She  and  her  sister  Anne 
remained  in  the  City  for  three  full  days.  Their 
headquarters  were  still  the  Chapter  Coffee  House, 
off  Paternoster  Row.  Two  of  their  evenings 
were  spent  at  the  West  End  of  the  town,  at  No. 
4  Westbourne  Place,  where  Mr.  Smith  resided 
with  his  mother  and  sisters.  Mr.  Smith  did 
not  see  Anne  Bronte  again.  She  died  in  less 
than  a  year,  on  May  28,   1849, 

220 


Charlotte  Brontl'  in  London 

There  quickly  followed,  during  the  next 
four  years,  four  visits  which  finally  brought 
London  within  Charlotte  Bronte's  full  com- 
prehension. During  all  these  visits,  she  was 
Mr.  Smith's  guest  beneath  his  mother's  roof 
It  was  under  his  auspices  and  in  his  society 
that  she  realized  her  long-cherished  ambition  of 
familiarizing  herself  with  London — its  thrilling 
*' themes  and  sights  and  sounds," 

Only  three  months  of  her  thirty-nine  years 
were  devoted  to  the  City  of  her  early  hopes 
and  fears.  But  those  three  months  provided, 
as  she  acknowledged,  some  of  the  most  stirring 
moments  in  her  career.  She  taxed  her  strength 
by  her  persistency  as  a  sightseer.  Her  courage 
was  often  tried  by  social  intercourse  with  her 
literary  compeers  to  whom  Mr.  Smith  intro- 
duced her.  She  nerved  herself  for  the  encounters 
with  the  self-questioning  rebuke  :  "  Who  but 
a  coward  would  pass  his  whole  life  in  hamlets  }  " 
But  her  spirit  often  quailed.  Yet  her  study  of 
human  character  gained  in  subtlety  and  generosity 
under  the  varied  ordeals  of  the  great  City.  In 
her  maturest  novel,  Villette^  she  garnered  the 
fruit  of  the  broadened  outlook  on  human 
nature  which  she  owed  to  her  London  experi- 
ence. 

Mr.  Smith  was  "  the  guide,  philosopher,  and 
friend "  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  London  days. 
For  full  two-thirds  of  the   nineteenth  century  he 

231 


charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

played  an  interesting  and  important  part  on  the 
literary  stage  apart  from  her  and  her  work. 
His  association  with  her  was  but  one  link  in 
a  long  chain  of  achievement.  Yet  students  of 
Charlotte  Bronte's  history  and  work  have  an 
especially  good  right  to  ask  what  manner  of 
man  he  was  as  she  knew  him. 

Miss  Bronte's  junior  by  eight  years,  Mr 
Smith  had  lately  passed  his  twenty-fourth  birth- 
day when  she,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two,  first 
introduced  herself  to  him  at  his  office  in  Corn- 
hill.  London-born,  a  child  of  Scottish  settlers, 
he  had  already  lived  from  boyhood  a  busy  life, 
and  had  shown  that  large-minded  spirit,  that 
keen  intuition,  that  sense  of  responsibility,  that 
mercantile  aptitude  which  characterized  his  re- 
maining three-and-fifty  years.  In  1816,  the 
year  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  birth,  his  father,  a 
native  of  Elginshire,  had  opened  (with  a  partner, 
Alexander  Elder,  a  native  of  Banff)  a  booksellers' 
and  stationers'  shop  in  Fenchurch  Street. 
"Booksellers"  and  "publishers"  were  then 
convertible  terms,  and  Smith  &  Elder  were 
publishers  on  a  modest  scale  from  early  days. 
Soon  moving  to  Cornhill,  the  partners  grafted 
on  their  existing  business  an  East  India  Agency, 
and  for  more  than  thirty  years  the  firm  pursued 
in  ever-increasing  volume  the  joint  work  of 
publishers  and  East  India  agents.  Young  Smith 
entered  the  twin  business  at  the  age  of  thirteen, 

222 


charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

and  at  first  took  more  kindly  to  the  publishing 
than  to  the  East  Indian  branch.  His  pupilage 
was  brief.  When  he  was  no  more  than  twenty 
— in  1844 — his  father's  retirement,  owing  to 
failing  health,  flung  on  him  the  responsible 
charge  of  the  growing  concern,  and  circumstances 
quickly  constituted  him  sole  proprietor  and 
director.  His  father  soon  died.  Encouraged 
by  his  mother,  from  whom  he  inherited  much 
of  his  firm  and  sanguine  spirit,  he  weathered 
formidable  initial  difficulties,  and  under  his 
control  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.  became  the  chief 
East  India  agents  and  one  of  the  leading  pub- 
lishing houses  in  London. 

Mr.  Smith  had  been  only  four  years  the 
firm's  responsible  chief  when  Charlotte  and 
Anne  Bronte  called  on  him,  A  period  of  pros- 
perity was  opening  for  him  in  all  directions,  and 
before  long  he  was  to  become  the  publisher  of 
the  flower  of  contemporary  literature.  The  firm 
was  already  acting  for  Ruskin,  then  an  unknown 
man  under  thirty,  and  with  Ruskin  Mr.  Smith 
was  already  intimate.  But  at  present  the  only 
novelist  of  any  repute  with  whom  Smith,  Elder 
&  Co.  had  been  nearly  associated  was  the  gran- 
diloquent writer  of  blood-curdling  romance, 
G.  P.  R.  James. 

Of  the  first  impressions  that  Mr.  Smith  made 
on  Charlotte  Bronte  she  has  left  a  frank  record 
in  her  letters.     She  wrote  there  of  his  youth,  of 

223 


(.charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

his  practical  instinct,  his  caution,  his  sense  of 
honour,  his  enterprise,  his  quiet  raillery.  But 
her  final  and  comprehensive  study  of  his  char- 
acter was  made  in  the  medium  of  fiction.  There 
are  grounds  for  regarding  Villette  as  her  crown- 
ing achievement  in  literature.  The  book  is  to 
a  large  extent  a  recension  of  her  early  effort 
The  Professor.  But  her  touch  had  grown  far 
firmer,  and  her  outlook  on  life  had  widened 
since  she  made  that  first  attempt.  The  old 
canvas  was  painted  anew.  Characters,  of  which 
she  had  no  previous  conception,  were  brought 
into  the  foreground.  Bright  colour  for  the  first 
time  illuminated  the  settled  gloom.  The  cause 
of  the  cloud-lifting  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
radiance  was  clearly  caught  from  the  character 
of  Mr.  Smith,  from  her  close  study  of  London 
sights  under  his  surveillance,  and  from  the  cheer- 
ful hospitality  which  she  enjoyed  in  his  London 
home.  Dr.  John  Graham  Bretton,  and  his 
mother,  Mrs.  Bretton,  who  shed  on  the  novel 
its  warmest  glow,  are  Miss  Bronte's  full  and 
candid  interpretations  of  the  personalities  of  her 
London  host  and  hostess.  She  bequeathed  to 
posterity  no  more  delightful  gifts. 

Miss  Bronte  has  been  charged  with  transcrib- 
ing in  all  her  novels  her  private  experience 
somewhat  too  literally  to  satisfy  the  best  canons 
of  art.  Of  that  charge  1  will  speak  briefly 
before    I    close.     In    Villette^    at    any   rate,   she 

224 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

paints  with  curious  fidelity  many  portraits  of 
those  with  whom  she  had  been  in  living  contact 
both  before  and  after  she  grew  familiar  with 
London.  Villette  is  Brussels  ;  her  own  sojourn 
at  M.  Heger's  school  and  her  companions  there 
form  the  staple  of  her  argument.  But  with  an 
ingenuity  that  may  be  fairly  styled  felicitous 
she  weaves  into  her  canvas  all  the  brightest 
threads  of  her  London  life. 

No  one  who  either  knew  Mr.  Smith  or  heard 
him  speak  of  his  mother  can  fail  to  detect  their 
two  likenesses  in  Mrs.  Bretton  and  Dr.  John. 
To  the  portrayal  of  the  son  Charlotte  Bronte 
brought  her  keen  power  of  observation  in  its 
fullest  blossom.  The  mother  is  sketched  more 
lightly,  but  no  less  surely.  No  sign  of  either 
is  given  in  the  first  sketch  of  the  book  in  The 
Professor. 

Some  idealization  is  inseparable  from  fictitious 
portraiture  even  when  the  artist  draws  the 
lineaments  directly  from  life.  In  the  setting  of 
Dr.  John  in  medical  practice  at  Villette  there 
is  nothing  which  reflects  any  phase  of  Mr. 
Smith's  career.  Dr.  John's  environment  is  either 
imaginary  or  assimilates  gleanings  from  another 
household.  It  may  be  difficult  here  and  there 
to  reconcile  a  feature  in  the  counterfeit  present- 
ment with  one's  own  impression  of  the  original. 
But  the  discrepancies  are  negligible.  For  those 
who  knew   Mr.  Smith,  Dr.  John  is  a  speaking 

235  P 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

portrait.  Nor  does  the  resemblance  end  with 
the  graphic  presentment  of  character  and  out- 
ward aspect.  In  spite  of  divergence  from  actual 
fact  in  the  surroundings,  Dr.  John  and  Lucy 
Snowe,  the  heroine  of  Villette^  are  involved  in 
some  digressive  adventures  identical  with  ex- 
periences which  jointly  befell  Charlotte  Bronte 
and  Mr.  Smith  when  the  writer  was  visiting 
London. 

In  personal  appearance  Dr.  John  vividly  recalls 
his  prototype.  The  well-proportioned  figure, 
the  handsome  and  manly  face  and  brow,  the 
imposing  height,  the  blue  eyes,  the  hair  worn 
rather  long,  which  are  precisely  described  in  the 
novel,  come  straight  from  the  unmistakable 
model.  There  is  an  unusual  flicker  of  humour 
in  the  stress  laid  on  the  indeterminate  hue  of 
the  hero's  hair — such  as  friends  did  not  venture 
to  specify  except  as  the  sun  shone  on  it  "  when 
they  called  it  golden." 

It  is  in  psychological  analysis  of  her  friend 
and  publisher's  temperament  that  Miss  Bronte 
shows  her  full  strength.  Admiringly  sympa- 
thetic as  is  her  prevailing  tone,  she  was  too 
critical  and  too  honest  an  artist  to  indulge  in 
unqualified  panegyric.  "  Strong  and  cheerful, 
firm  and  courteous,  not  rash  yet  valiant,"  are 
the  salient  notes  of  her  picture,  and  none  who 
knew  Mr.  Smith  can  question  the  justice  of  these 
epithets'  application.     "  Much  feeling   spoke    in 

226 


Charlotte  Bronte'  in  London 

his  features  and  more  sat  silent  in  his  eye." 
Of  Dr.  John's  "  gay  and  sanguine "  tempera- 
ment, of  his  generosity,  his  good  nature,  his 
amenity,  Miss  Bronte's  pages  do  not  lack  the 
proof.  But  to  her  penetrating  vision  "  Dr.  John 
was  not  perfect  any  more  than  I  am  perfect." 
She  declined  to  credit  him  with  the  attributes 
of  *'  a  god."  She  had  no  intention,  she  wrote 
to  Mr.  Smith  himself,  of  keeping  Dr.  John 
*'  supremely  worshipful  " — "  a  being  unlike  real 
life,  inconsistent  with  real  truth,  at  variance 
with  probability."  "  Human  fallibility  leavened 
him  throughout."  But  the  shadows  are  not 
dark.  They  add  value  to  the  portrait  almost 
as  much  from  the  light  they  shed  on  the 
painter's  idiosyncrasies  as  from  any  inherent 
value  that  attaches  to  them  in  the  way  of 
portraiture. 

Charlotte  Bronte's  sense  of  humour  was  not 
strong.  Though  no  stranger  to  the  playful  mood, 
she  strictly  checked  its  working.  She  was 
usually  too  serious  and  too  earnest  to  approve 
any  tendency  to  levity.  Raillery  or  gentle 
ridicule  she  suspected  of  insincerity  or  worse. 
Innocent  fun  lay  outside  the  normal  scope  of  her 
intuition.  Primness  was  intertwined  with  her 
passionate  fibre.  Hence  came  the  main  mis- 
givings of  her  friend  and  publisher.  In  Mr. 
Smith's  letters  and  conversation  she  noted  hints 
of    a    playful    disposition    which     puzzled    her. 

227 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

With  characteristic   frankness  she  wrote    to  him 
thus : — 


I  will  tell  you  a  thing  to  be  noted  often  in  your  letters  and 
almost  always  in  your  conversation,  a  psychological  thing  and 
not  a  matter  pertaining  to  style  or  intellect — I  mean  an 
undercurrent  of  quiet  raillery,  an  inaudible  laugh  to  yourself, 
a  not  unkindly,  but  somewhat  subtle,  playing  on  your  corre- 
spondent or  companion  for  the  time  being — in  short,  a  sly 
touch  of  a  Mephistopheles  with  the  fiend  extracted. 

She  confessed  that  she  was  at  times  half  afraid 
of  the  enigmatic  smile  of  questioning  rebuke  to 
which  Mr.  Smith's  features  lent  themselves  in 
her  eyes. 

Dr.  John  is  invested  with  the  like  traits,  and 
she  dissects  them  almost  mercilessly.  "  One 
could  not  in  a  hurry  make  up  one's  mind," 
she  writes  in  one  chapter  of  Villette^  "as  to  the 
descriptive  epithet  it  [i.e.  Dr.  John's  smile] 
merited.  While  it  pleased  it  brought  surging 
up  into  the  mind  all  one's  foibles  and  weak 
points."  The  sentence  is  an  eloquent  confession 
of  the  writer's  own  sensitiveness.  Dr.  John's 
"  mischievous  half-smile  "  at  other  times  seemed 
to  her  to  betray  either  "  masculine  vanity  elate 
and  tickled,"  or  an  "  unconscious  roguish  arch- 
ness," which  dashed  the  observer's  equanimity. 

More  subtle  failings  suggested  themselves  as 
her  brush  worked  over  the  canvas.  She  was 
inclined    to   blame   her   hero   for   a  lighthearted 

228 


Charlotte  Bronte'  in   hondon 

absorption  in  the  pleasure  of  the  moment  and 
for  a  masculine  self-esteem,  which  hovered  in 
her  judgment  between  a  vice  or  virtue.  While 
she  amply  acknowledged  his  consideration  for 
others,  she  sometimes  imputed  to  him  slowness 
to  apprehend  the  felicity  of  unsolicited  benevo- 
lence. 

Though  a  kind,  generous  man,  with  fine  feeling,  he  was 
not  quick  to  seize  or  apprehend  another's  feelings.  Make 
your  need  known,  his  hand  was  open  ;  put  your  grief  into 
words,  he  turned  no  deaf  ear  ;  expect  refinements  of  per- 
ception,  miracles   of  intuition,  and  realize  disappointment. 

Censure  so  searching  bears  witness  to  the  exacting 
terms  which  the  author  imposed  on  her  beau-ideal. 
Every  side  of  Mr.  Smith's  character  was 
conscientiously  surveyed  under  cover  of  Dr. 
John.  With  graphic  literalness  Dr.  John's 
attributes  reflect  Mr.  Smith's  magnificent  capa- 
city for  work  and  his  methodical  precision. 
While  Charlotte  Bronte  was  the  guest  of  his 
mother  in  London,  the  calls  of  his  heavy  and 
incessant  labours  at  Cornhili  were  often  reckoned 
more  than  one  man  could  sustain.  It  is  obvious 
what  Charlotte  Bronte  had  in  her  mind  when 
she  made  Lucy  Snowe  remark  of  Dr.  John  : — 

I  can  hardly  tell  how  he  managed  his  engagements. 
They  were  numerous  ;  yet  by  dint  of  system  he  classed 
them  in  an  order  which  left  him  a  daily  period  of  liberty, 

229 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

I  often  saw  him  hard-worked,  yet  seldom  over-driven,  and 
never  irritated,  confused,  or  oppressed.  What  he  did  was 
accomplished  with  the  ease  and  grace  of  all-sufficing  strength  ; 
with  the  bountiful  cheerfulness  of  high  and  unbroken 
energies . 

Nor  does  Charlotte  Bronte  depart  a  hair's 
breath  from  her  circumambient  text  when  she 
describes  how  Dr.  John,  despite  his  professional 
preoccupations,  found  time  to  gratify  the  heroine's 
taste  for  sightseeing.  There  is  something  like 
irrelevancy  and  inconsistency  in  the  emphasis, 
which  is  laid  in  Villette  on  Dr.  John's  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  points  of  interest  in  that 
French  town  where,  according  to  the  fiction,  he 
was  an  alien  dweller.  Mr.  Smith's  exhaustive 
acquaintance  with  London,  and  his  own  accounts 
of  the  watchful  care  with  which,  at  her  instance, 
he  conducted  Miss  Bronte  through  the  laby- 
rinth of  its  wonders,  supply  the  key  to  the 
riddle.  Theatres,  opera-houses,  picture  galleries, 
newspaper  offices,  prisons,  banks,  hospitals, 
Parliament  house,  were  all  open  to  her  with 
him  as  her  guide.  The  chief  object  of  her 
adoration,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  became  to 
her  a  familiar  figure,  owing  to  Mr.  Smith's 
ingenious  pursuit  of  him  at  church  or  in  street. 
Well  might  Lucy  Snowe  say  of  Dr.  John  : 
"  Of  every  object  worth  seeing  he  seemed  to 
possess  the  Open,  sesame  !  .  .  .  He  took  me  to 
places  of  interest   in    the    town,  whose    names    I 

230 


Charlotte  Bronte  in   London 

had  not  before  so  much  as  heard."  It  was  in 
one  "  happy  fortnight "  that  Dr.  John  revealed 
to  Lucy  Snowe  "  more  of  Villette,  its  environs 
and  inhabitants,"  than  months  could  have  shown 
her  with  a  less  efficient  escort.  Villette  and 
London  (as  discovered  to  Charlotte  Bronte  by 
Mr.  Smith)  are  here  convertible  terms. 

Dr.  John's  minutest  characteristics  as  cicerone 
are  scrutinized  with  the  same  transparent  signi- 
ficance. Dr.  John  would  leave  Lucy  Snowe  in  a 
picture  gallery  or  museum  to  study  or  meditate 
alone  for  two  or  three  hours,  and  call  for  her 
when  his  business  set  him  free.  He  did  not 
oppress  her  with  his  own  comment,  nor  pretend 
to  connoisseurship  which  he  did  not  possess. 
"  He  spoke  his  thought,  which  was  sure  to  be 
fresh."  His  sensible  criticism  came  from  his 
own  resources.  It  was  not  borrowed  nor  stolen 
from  books,  nor  decked  out  with  dry  facts  or 
trite  phrases  or  hackneyed  opinions.  Pertinent 
details  interested  him.  There  was  no  superfi- 
ciality about  his  power  of  observation.  His  talk 
was  neither  cold  nor  vague.  "  He  never 
prosed." 

A  touching  charm  envelops  all  the  relations 
which  the  book  allots  to  Dr.  John  and  his 
mother.  Mrs.  Bretton  has  practically  no  charac- 
teristics which  tradition  fails  to  trace  in  Mr. 
Smith's  mother,  and  many  of  Mrs.  Bretton's 
phrases    are   known    to   have   fallen    from    Mrs. 

231 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Smith's  lips.  On  her  first  introduction  to 
Miss  Bronte,  Mrs.  Smith  was  fifty-one  years 
old,  and  had  been  a  widow  less  than  two  years. 
Her  youthful  spirit  was  undimmed,  and  her  son, 
as  he  often  remarked,  owed  to  her  shrewdness, 
vivacity,  and  sanguine  temper  a  large  measure 
of  the  confidence  with  which  he  faced  and  con- 
quered the  heavy  and  complicated  responsibilities 
that  devolved  on  his  young  shoulders  when  his 
father  died.  The  perfect  understanding  which 
linked  mother  and  son  together  Charlotte  Bronte 
transferred  to  her  canvas  with  rare  luminosity. 

In  a  letter  to  a  friend  Miss  Bronte  gave  her 
earliest  impression  of  Mrs.  Smith  as  *'  a  portly, 
handsome  woman  of  her  age,"  and  of  her  younger 
children  as  "all  dark-eyed,  dark- haired,  and 
having  clear,  pale  faces."  This  is  how  Mrs. 
Bretton  was  first  brought  to  the  reader's  notice 
in  Villette  : — 

She  was  not  young  as  I  remember  her,  but  she  was  still 
handsome,  tall,  well  made,  and  though  dark  for  an  English- 
woman, yet  wearing  always  the  clearness  of  health  in  her 
brunette  cheek,  and  its  vivacity  in  a  pair  of  fine  cheerful 
black  eyes. 

Throughout  the  book  Mrs.  Bretton  is  credited 
at  fifty  with  "  the  alacrity  and  strength  of  five- 
and-twenty,"  with  a  self-reliant  mood  and  a 
decided  bearing.  She  never,  we  are  told,  made 
a  fuss  over  trifles,  and  was  always  self-possessed 

232 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

in  the  presence  of  anxiety.  Though  she  could 
be  peremptory  and  commanding  in  manner, 
cheerfulness  and  benevolence  possessed  her  being. 
Her  son,  who  honoured  her  counsel,  called  her 
"  old  lady."  His  affectionate  regard  for  her 
mingled  at  their  hearth  with  a  playful  spirit 
of  camaraderie.  Hints  are  given  in  the  book 
of  a  difficult  pecuniary  situation  in  the  affairs  of 
the  family,  which  Mrs.  Bretton  and  her  son 
boldly  met  side  by  side.  The  reference  to  the 
half-told  episode  ends  in  Villette  with  these  words  : 
"  So  courageous  a  mother,  with  such  a  champion 
in  her  son,  was  well  fitted  to  fight  a  good  fight 
with  the  world,  and  to  prevail  ultimately."  None 
can  doubt  that  Miss  Bronte  here  was  reproducing 
some  confidences  given  her  by  Mr.  Smith  or 
his  mother  of  the  days  when  he  first  took  the 
helm  at  Cornhill. 

The  best  tribute  that  one  can  pay  to  Mrs.  Smith 
is  that  no  more  charming  type  of  matronhood 
than  Mrs.  Bretton  is  known  to  fiction.  Charlotte 
Bronte's  final  judgment  on  the  hospitality  which 
mother  and  son  offered  her  in  London  is  found 
in  these  fine  sentences  : — 

There  are  human  tempers — bland,  glowing,  and  genial — 
within  whose  influence  it  is  as  good  for  the  poor  in  spirit 
to  live,  as  it  is  for  the  feeble  in  frame  to  bask  in  the  glow 
of  noon.  Of  the  number  of  these  choice  natures  were 
certainly  both  Dr.  Bretton's  and  his  mother's.  They  liked 
to  communicate  happiness,  as  some  like  to  occasion  misery. 

233 


charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Smith's  lips.  On  her  first  introduction  to 
Miss  Bronte,  Mrs.  Smith  was  fifty-one  years 
old,  and  had  been  a  widow  less  than  two  years. 
Her  youthful  spirit  was  undimmed,  and  her  son, 
as  he  often  remarked,  owed  to  her  shrewdness, 
vivacity,  and  sanguine  temper  a  large  measure 
of  the  confidence  with  which  he  faced  and  con- 
quered the  heavy  and  complicated  responsibilities 
that  devolved  on  his  young  shoulders  when  his 
father  died.  The  perfect  understanding  which 
linked  mother  and  son  together  Charlotte  Bronte 
transferred  to  her  canvas  with  rare  luminosity. 

In  a  letter  to  a  friend  Miss  Bronte  gave  her 
earliest  impression  of  Mrs.  Smith  as  '*  a  portly, 
handsome  woman  of  her  age,"  and  of  her  younger 
children  as  "all  dark-eyed,  dark- haired,  and 
having  clear,  pale  faces."  This  is  how  Mrs. 
Bretton  was  first  brought  to  the  reader's  notice 
in   Villette  : — 

She  was  not  young  as  I  remember  her,  but  she  was  still 
handsome,  tall,  well  made,  and  though  dark  for  an  English- 
woman, yet  wearing  always  the  clearness  of  health  in  her 
brunette  cheek,  and  its  vivacity  in  a  pair  of  fine  cheerful 
black  eyes. 

Throughout  the  book  Mrs.  Bretton  is  credited 
at  fifty  with  **  the  alacrity  and  strength  of  five- 
and-twenty,"  with  a  self-reliant  mood  and  a 
decided  bearing.  She  never,  we  are  told,  made 
a  fuss  over  trifles,  and  was  always  self-possessed 

232 


Charlotte  Bronte'  in  London 

in  the  presence  of  anxiety.  Though  she  could 
be  peremptory  and  commanding  in  manner, 
cheerfulness  and  benevolence  possessed  her  being. 
Her  son,  who  honoured  her  counsel,  called  her 
"old  lady."  His  affectionate  regard  for  her 
mingled  at  their  hearth  with  a  playful  spirit 
of  camaraderie.  Hints  are  given  in  the  book 
of  a  difficult  pecuniary  situation  in  the  affairs  of 
the  family,  which  Mrs.  Bretton  and  her  son 
boldly  met  side  by  side.  The  reference  to  the 
half-told  episode  ends  in  Villette  with  these  words  : 
"So  courageous  a  mother,  with  such  a  champion 
in  her  son,  was  well  fitted  to  fight  a  good  fight 
with  the  world,  and  to  prevail  ultimately."  None 
can  doubt  that  Miss  Bronte  here  was  reproducing 
some  confidences  given  her  by  Mr.  Smith  or 
his  mother  of  the  days  when  he  first  took  the 
helm  at  Cornhill. 

The  best  tribute  that  one  can  pay  to  Mrs,  Smith 
is  that  no  more  charming  type  of  matronhood 
than  Mrs.  Bretton  is  known  to  fiction.  Charlotte 
Bronte's  final  judgment  on  the  hospitality  which 
mother  and  son  ofi^ered  her  in  London  is  found 
in  these  fine  sentences  : — 

There  arc  human  tempers — bland,  glowing,  and  genial — 
within  whose  influence  it  is  as  good  for  the  poor  in  spirit 
to  live,  as  it  is  for  the  feeble  in  frame  to  bask  in  the  glow 
of  noon.  Of  the  number  of  these  choice  natures  were 
certainly  both  Dr.  Bretton's  and  his  mother's.  They  liked 
to  communicate  happiness,  as  some  like  to  occasion  misery. 

233 


charlotte  Bront? :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

talnment  which  Charlotte  witnessed  with  Mr. 
Smith.  Soon,  however,  after  Charlotte  left  for 
Haworth,  Mr.  Smith  was  again  present  at  the 
Devonshire  House  theatricals  with  his  sister  and 
a  lady  friend.  On  this  occasion  some  scenery 
on  the  stage  caught  fire,  and  for  a  few  seconds 
a  panic  threatened.  Mr.  Smith  gripped  his  two 
companions  by  the  wrist  and  with  all  his  force 
held  them  to  their  seats.  They  complained 
bitterly  of  his  roughness,  but  he  helped  thereby 
to  stem  the  alarm.  The  smouldering  flame  was 
extinguished  and  confidence  was  restored.  Mr. 
Smith  wrote  of  the  episode  to  Charlotte  Bronte, 
and  his  story  of  the  happily  slender  accident 
and  of  his  own  conduct  bred  in  her  throbbing 
mind  the  shocks  and  perils  of  the  burning  play- 
house in  Villette. 

The  last  illustration  which  I  give  here  of 
Charlotte  Bronte's  literary  use  of  her  London 
visits  concerns  not  Mr.  Smith  alone,  but  also 
and  more  Immediately  Thackeray,  the  most 
eminent  of  the  authors  whom  he  made  person- 
ally  known  to  his  guest. 

Thackeray's  fame  was  finally  assured  by  the 
publication  of  Vanity  Fair  in  1847,  a  few  months 
before  the  appearance  of  Jane  Eyre.  Thackeray's 
masterpiece  filled  Miss  Bronte  with  enthusiastic 
admiration,  and  the  author  became  at  once  an 
adored  hero.  She  dedicated  to  him  the  second 
edition  of  Jane  Eyre  early  in  1848.     It  was  while 

236 


Charlotte  Bronte'  in  London 

Thackeray's  second  great  novel  Pendennis  was 
nearing  the  close  of  its  original  monthly  issue 
that  Miss  Bronte  gratified  one  of  her  cherished 
ambitions  by  meeting  Thackeray  in  person. 
The  occasion  was  a  dinner  given  by  Mrs.  Smith 
and  her  son  in  1849,  when  Miss  Bronte  was 
paying  them  a  second  visit.  The  thrilling  event 
proved  for  her  a  more  trying  ideal  than  she 
anticipated.  "  In  company,"  she  wrote  in  Villette^ 
"  a  wretched  idiosyncrasy  forbade  me  to  see  or 
feel  anything.  ...  I  never  yet  saw  the  well- 
reared  child,  much  less  the  educated  adult,  who 
could  not  put  me  to  shame  by  the  sustained 
intelligence  of  its  demeanour "  in  social  inter- 
course. When  she  first  saw  Thackeray  face  to 
face  her  shyness  was  invincible.  "  Excitement 
and  exhaustion  made  savage  work  of  me  that 
evening,"  she  wrote  ;  "  what  he  thought  of  me 
I  cannot  tell."  Thackeray  long  remembered 
"  the  trembling  little  frame,  the  little  hand,  the 
great  honest  eyes."  Other  meetings  followed 
between  the  two  ;  but  though  Miss  Bronte  lost 
her  first  sense  of  speechless  dread,  the  personal 
association  never  proved  quite  congenial  on  either 
side.  Thackeray  and  Miss  Bronte  reverenced 
each  other's  genius  with  genuine  sincerity.  But 
Thackeray's  easy  half-cynical  conversation  ruffled 
her  austerity.  To  him  she  presented  herself  as 
'*  a  little  austere  Joan  of  Arc,  marching  in  upon 
us  and   rebuking   our   easy   lives   and    our   easy 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

morals."  His  personality  would  seem  to  have 
both  attracted  and  repelled  her.  On  a  morning 
call  which  Thackeray  made  her  at  Mr.  Smith's 
house,  she  improved  the  occasion  by  reproaching 
him  with  his  shortcomings.  Mr.  Smith  has 
vivaciously  described  his  own  unheralded  entry 
on  "  the  queer  scene."  The  little  lady  hardly 
reached  Thackeray's  elbow,  but  she  plied  the 
giant  with  a  raking  fire  of  invective  before 
peace  was  restored.  Miss  Bronte  declared  that 
Thackeray  behaved  on  the  occasion  "  like  a  great 
Turk  and  heathen  ;  his  excuses  were  worse  than 
his  crimes." 

The  peculiarly  severe  standard  by  which  she 
judged  Thackeray  has  left  a  curious  trace  on 
Villette.  In  May  1851,  Mr.  Smith  and  his 
mother  took  her  to  Willis's  Rooms  to  hear 
the  novelist  deliver  the  second  of  his  lectures 
on  the  Humourists.  He  recognized  her  in  the 
audience,  and  after  the  lecture  playfully  intro- 
duced her  to  his  mother  as  Jane  Eyre^  the  title 
of  her  passionate  heroine.  Mr.  Smith  has  re- 
corded that  she  warmly  resented  the  mode  of 
address.  But  she  was  even  more  embarrassed 
by  Thackeray's  frank  appeal  to  her  to  tell  him 
how  she  enjoyed  his  performance.  So  natural 
a  request  disturbed  her  equanimity,  and  she  had 
no  word  to  offer.  This  slight  fleeting  encounter 
was  enshrined  a  iew  months  later  in  Villette. 
The  Professor,  Paul  Emanuel,  there  gives,  amid 

238 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

applause,  a  lecture  in  the  Villette  Athenee,  at 
which  the  heroine,  Lucy  Snowe,  is  present.  Of 
the  Professor's  subsequent  demeanour  Charlotte 
Bronte  writes  thus  in  her  role  of  Lucy  Snowe  : — 

As  our  party  left  the  Hall,  lie  stood  at  the  entrance  ;  he 
saw  and  knew  me,  and  lifted  his  hat ;  he  offered  his  hand 
in  passing,  and  uttered  the  words  "  Qu'en  dites-vous  ? " — 
question  eminently  characteristic,  and  reminding  me,  even 
in  this  his  moment  of  triumph,  of  that  inquisitive  restless- 
ness, that  absence  of  what  I  considered  desirable  self-control 
which  were  among  his  faults.  He  should  not  have  cared 
just  then  to  ask  what  I  thought,  or  what  anybody  thought  ; 
but  he  did  care,  and  he  was  too  natural  to  conceal,  too 
impulsive  to  repress,  his  wish.  Well  !  if  I  blamed  his  over- 
eagerness,  I  liked  his  ndtveti.  I  would  have  praised  him  : 
I  had  plenty  of  praise  in  my  heart  ;  but,  alas  !  no  words 
came  to  my  lips.  Who  has  words  at  the  right  moment  ? 
I  stammered  some  lame  expressions,  but  was  truly  glad 
when  other  people,  coming  up  with  profuse  congratulations, 
covered  my  deficiency  with  their  redundancy. 

The  scene  of  May  1851  in  Willis's  Rooms 
is  here  faithfully  recorded. 

Another  scene,  in  which  Charlotte  Bronte 
and  Thackeray  were  the  protagonists,  was  enacted 
in  Thackeray's  house  the  following  month.  The 
author  of  Villette  found  no  place  for  this  second 
adventure  in  her  fiction.  But  all  the  details 
still  live  freshly  in  the  memory  of  Lady  Ritchie, 
Thackeray's  daughter,  who  herself  played  a  part 
in  the  incident,  and  from  her  lips  I  learned  a 
little    more    than    I  knew   a   week    or  two  ago. 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Both  she  and  Mr.  Smith  have  already  described 
the  chief  features  of  the  episode  with  vivacity 
in  print.  But  the  points  of  interest,  whether 
new  or  old,  are  varied  enough  to  excuse  mention 
of  it  here. 

It  was  one  evening  in  June  1851,  when  both 
novelists  were  at  the  zenith  of  their  high  repu- 
tations, that  the  giant  author  of  Vanity  Fair 
gave  at  his  house  in  Young  Street,  Kensington, 
a  small  evening  party  in  honour  of  the  little 
authoress  of  Jane  Eyre  and  Shirley.  She  was 
on  her  longest  visit  to  Mr.  Smith  and  his  mother 
across  the  Park,  and  Mr.  Smith  accompanied 
her  to  Thackeray's  house.  Lady  Ritchie  has 
written  of  the  excitement  with  which  her  father, 
her  sister,  atid  herself  awaited  in  the  hall  the 
great  little  lady's  arrival.  Dressed  in  a  little 
barege  dress  with  a  pattern  of  faint  green  moss, 
the  tiny  and  delicate  woman  entered  the  drawing- 
room,  hanging  on  her  host's  arm,  "  in  mittens, 
in  silence,  and  in  seriousness."  To  meet  the 
celebrated  writer  there  were  gathered,  as  Lady 
Ritchie  lately  reminded  me,  women  of  the  most 
brilliant  intellect  and  speech  in  London.  There 
were  Mrs.  Carlyle,  the  witty  and  sardonic  wife 
of  Thomas  Carlyle  ;  Mrs.  Brookfield,  the  clever 
wife  of  the  fashionable  preacher  ;  Mrs.  Procter, 
overflowing  in  good  spirits  and  shrewdness, 
wife  of  Charles  Lamb's  friend  and  biographer, 
Barry    Cornwall.     All    were     anxious    to     show 

240 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

respect  for  the  distinguished  guest,  and  were 
exhilarated  by  the  expectation  of  greeting 
her.  But  Miss  Bronte  was  under  a  nervous 
spell,  and  her  mental  lassitude  spread  through 
the  room.  A  blight  settled  on  the  assembly. 
Charlotte  repulsed  the  ladies'  advances.  Mrs. 
Brookfield  opened  conversation  with  the  expres- 
sion of  a  hope  that  Miss  Bronte  liked  London. 
The  skirmish  ended  with  the  novelist's  curt  reply, 
"  I  do  and  I  don't."  The  gloom  thickened  ; 
the  lamp  began  to  smoke ;  Thackeray's  native 
gaiety  drooped  ;  all  hearts  grew  chill.  The  host, 
unable  to  cope  with  the  silence,  as  his  daughter 
tells  us,  furtively  on  tiptoe  made  for  the  street 
door,  and  sought  the  consolation  of  his  club. 
His  daughter,  mystified  by  his  retreat,  suggested 
to  the  party  in  the  drawing-room  that  he  would 
be  back  soon  ;  but  he  did  not  return  till  his 
guests  had  departed.  To  Lady  Ritchie's  memory 
Charlotte  still  presents  herself  as  a  shy  and  prim 
little  governess  who  regarded  children  like  her- 
self and  her  sister  with  a  freezing  severity.  Mr. 
Smith,  Charlotte's  companion  at  Thackeray's 
memorable  party,  said  that  as  she  drove  back 
with  him  to  his  mother's  house,  she  spoke  acidly 
of  the  two  little  girls.' 

'  I  am  informed  by  Miss  Millais,  daughter  of  the  late  Sir 
John  Everett  Millais,  President  of  the  Royal  Academy,  that 
her  father  was  among  Thackeray's  guests  at  the  party  given 
in  Charlotte  Brontg's  honour.     Millais,  then  a  young  man  of 

341  Q 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

One's  sympathy  goes  out  to  this  visitor  to 
London  drawing-rooms  from  the  Yorkshire 
moors.  Seasoned  Londoners  could  at  a  first 
glance  find  little  in  her  that  was  prepossessing, 
and  many  probably  acquiesced  in  George  Henry 
Lewes's  ungallant  designation  of  her  as  "  a  little 
plain,  provincial,  sickly-looking  old  maid."  In 
her  first  draft  of  Villette^  which  embodied  so  much 
of  her  London  experience,  she  gave  herself 
(who  is  the  heroine)  the  surname  of  "  Frost," 
altering  it  to  "  Snowe "  in  the  final  version. 
But  her  coldness  was  superficial.  No  good  and 
charitable  judges  could  misconceive  the  warm 
enchantment  of  her  genius,  and  her  manner 
yielded  most  of  its  self-conscious  crudity  and 
asperity  to  the  sympathetic  influence  of  Mr. 
Smith's  hospitality. 

The  publication  of   Villette  in  January    1853, 

two-and-twenty,  had  already  made  considerable  reputation  as 
a  painter.  "  I  wish,"  Miss  Millais  writes  to  me  on  February 
28,  1909,  "I  had  written  down  my  father's  recollections  of 
Miss  Bronte.  He  saw  her  several  times  in  185 1,  and  must 
have  been  introduced  to  her  at  the  party,  which  Lady  Ritchie 
describes  wonderfully  as  being  so  painful.  He  told  me  very 
much  the  same  thing,  and  said  he  was  taken  up  by  Thackeray, 
and  Miss  Bronte  spoke  to  him.  He  said  her  eyes  were 
quite  remarkable,  and  afterwards  Miss  Bronte  remained  in 
appearance  his  idea  of  a  woman  genius.  The  little  lady 
*  looked  tired  with  her  own  brains.'  He  met  her  afterwards 
at  Mrs.  Procter's,  where  she  was  not  so  shy,  and  he  was 
anxious  to  do  a  drawing  of  her,  but  found  she  was  already 
engaged  to  sit  to  George  Richmond." 

242 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

brings  Charlotte  Bronte's  relations  with  London 
to  a  fitting  close.  The  book  was  begun  early 
in  1 85 1,  after  she  had  twice — for  some  weeks 
in  each  of  the  preceding  two  years — enjoyed 
the  hospitality  of  Mrs.  Smith  and  her  son.  The 
manuscript  occupied  her  at  intervals  until  the 
autumn  of  1852.  When  she  forwarded  at  that 
season  the  greater  portion  to  Mr.  Smith,  her 
correspondence  gives  many  signs  of  anxiety  lest 
her  bold  transcription  of  his  character  should 
cause  him  discontent.  But  the  wise  publisher 
kept  his  counsel,  and  she  as  prudently  made  no 
excuses.  He  pronounced  in  general  terms  a 
highly  favourable  verdict.  Some  of  his  criticism 
on  details  she  neglected,  and  he  did  not  press 
them.  He  hinted  at  some  "  discrepancy,"  "  a 
want  of  perfect  harmony  "  in  the  conception  of 
Dr.  John.  There  came,  too,  a  suggestion  from 
London  that  Dr.  John  should  in  the  closing 
chapters  marry  Lucy  Snowe.  But  no  such 
intention  found  place  in  Charlotte  Bronte's 
design.  "  Lucy,"  she  wrote  to  Mr.  Smith, 
'*  must  not  marry  Dr.  John  :  he  is  far  too 
youthful,  handsome,  bright-spirited,  and  sweet- 
tempered  ;  he  is  a  curled  darling  of  nature  and 
fortune,  and  must  draw  a  prize  in  life's  lottery. 
His  wife  must  be  young,  rich,  pretty  :  he  must 
be  made  very  happy  indeed."  In  the  book 
Dr.  John  is  mated  elsewhere,  and  he  passes  out 
of  Lucy   Snowe's   life  without    the   exchange   of 

243 


,  Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

any  confidence  of  the  heart.  The  heroine's 
passion  is  centred  on  the  grim,  great-hearted 
professor,  Paul  Emanuel,  who  dies  shipwrecked 
in  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The  knell  of  death, 
not  wedding  bells,  sounds  the  epilogue. 

When  in  January  1853  the  printing  of 
Villette  was  on  the  point  of  completion,  Miss 
Bronte  stayed  a  fourth  and  last  time  under  the 
Smiths'  roof  in  London.  For  a  crowded  fort- 
night, sight-seeing  was  continued  under  Mr. 
Smith's  escort  with  all  the  old  ardour.  Miss 
Bronte  was  still  Mr.  Smith's  guest  on  the  day 
of  Villette' s  publication,  and  she  was  at  hand  to 
hear  the  burst  of  unqualified  applause  with 
which  London  greeted  this  last  of  the  works  to 
be  published  in  her  lifetime.  Early  in  February 
1853  she  left  for  Haworth,  and  Mr.  Smith  did 
not  meet  her  again.  Later  in  the  year  their 
two  lives  underwent  almost  simultaneously  a 
momentous  change.  Mr.  Smith  became  engaged 
to  the  lady  whom  he  married  on  February  1 1 , 
1854,  and  Miss  Bronte  accepted  the  long-urged 
suit  of  her  father's  curate,  Mr.  NichoUs.  Mr. 
Smith  and  Charlotte  Bronte  exchanged  notes  of 
mutual  congratulation,  and  with  her  warm  ex- 
pressions of  good  wishes  for  Mr.  Smith's  married 
happiness  Miss  Bronte's  correspondence  with  her 
publisher  seems  to  have  closed.  Her  own  quiet 
wedding  took  place  a  few  months  later  (June 
29,   1854),  and  she  died  on  March  31,   1855. 

244 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

Mr.  Smith  lived  on  till  April  6,  1901.  Many 
and  vast  were  the  new  interests  which  absorbed 
him  in  the  long  interval  between  Charlotte 
Bronte's  death  and  his  own.  Many  were  the 
new  titles  he  acquired  to  fame  and  affection  in 
middle  life  and  in  age.  He  has  numerous  claims 
to  live  in  literary  history.  He  lives  there  as 
the  friend  of  authors  so  illustrious  as  Thackeray 
and  Browning,  whose  works  he  published  after 
he  became  Miss  Bronte's  publisher.  He  lives 
there  as  the  founder  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine 
and  of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette^  and  even  more 
conspicuously  as  the  public-spirited  projector  and 
proprietor  of  the  Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 
graphy. But  whatever  recognition  is  due  to  these 
achievements,  it  should  never  be  forgotten  by  the 
literary  historian  any  more  than  by  Charlotte 
Bronte's  disciples  that  he  was  in  youth  the 
original  of  her  sound-hearted,  manly,  and 
sensible  Dr.  John,  who  ranks  with  the  most 
cheering  portaits  of  masculine  virtue  that  the 
hand  of  genius  has  drawn. 

That  tendency,  which  Charlotte  Bronte  so 
signally  exemplifies  in  Dr.  John  and  Mrs. 
Bretton,  of  interpreting  in  her  novels  men  and 
women  with  whom  she  came  into  personal  con- 
tact, is  often  reckoned  a  defect  in  her  art.  It 
is  complained,  too,  that  she  indulged  overmuch 
in  self-portraiture,  and  that  her  heroines,  Jane 
Eyre   and    Lucy    Snowe,    present  with   too  little 

245 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

qualification  her  own  outlook  on  life  as  she 
records  it  in  her  private  correspondence.  The 
links  that  bind  her  fictitious  personages  to  herself 
and  her  living  associates  crowd,  indeed,  upon  the 
student  of  her  life,  and  this  "  audacious  fidelity," 
as  one  critic  terms  it,  has  been  cited  as  proof  of 
limitation  in  her  power  of  invention.  But  the 
point  against  her  may  easily  be  pressed  too  far. 
Every  novelist  presents  in  his  work  something  of 
himself  and  his  relations  with  kinsfolk,  friends, 
and  acquaintances.  Fielding,  Miss  Austen,  Scott, 
Thackeray,  all  faithfully  transcribe  much  of  them- 
selves and  of  the  life  around  them.  Yet  Miss 
Bronte's  censors,  even  when  they  admit  the 
question  to  be  one  only  of  degree,  aver  that  she 
depends  more  directly  and  to  a  larger  extent  than 
any  novelists  in  the  first  rank  on  the  immediate 
suggestion  of  her  own  sensation  and  environment. 
Neither  Sterne's  Uncle  Toby  nor  Thackeray's 
Colonel  Newcome,  we  are  reminded,  has  an 
identifiable  model.  Both,  as  far  as  are  known, 
were  compounded  in  the  crucible  of  their  creators' 
imagination.  On  the  other  hand,  Paul  Emanuel, 
Miss  Bronte's  most  complex  and  most  finished 
presentment  of  human  nature,  is  commonly 
reckoned  a  portrait  from  the  life  ;  Dr.  John,  her 
most  radiant  picture  of  mankind,  is  an  avowed 
delineation  of  Mr.  Smith. 

Broadly  speaking,    the  argument   would   seem 
to   merit   less   attention    than    has   been  paid  it. 

246 


Charlotte  Bronte  in  London 

After  all,  it  matters  little  whence  Charlotte 
Bronte  gleaned  her  material  compared  with  the 
uses  to  which  she  put  it.  No  artist  in  fiction 
can  reach  a  higher  level  of  achievement  than  that 
of  producing  an  irresistible  illusion  of  life  with 
its  throbbing  emotion,  its  elations,  its  depressions, 
its  hopes  and  fears.  A  novelist's  records  of  fact 
and  observation  come  to  little  unless  they  arc 
clothed  in  the  habiliments  of  genuine  feeling. 
In  the  absence  of  adequate  imagination,  men  and 
women,  whence-soever  they  come,  move  on  the 
printed  page  like  lay  figures.  Miss  Bronte's 
imaginative  endowment  has  been  excelled  in 
breadth  and  intensity.  But  her  imaginative  grip 
was  strong  enough  to  transmute  her  studies  from 
the  life  into  breathing  entities  of  flesh  and  blood. 
Penetrating  insight  lent  "  a  colossal  phlegm  and 
force  "  to  the  measure  of  creative  faculty  within 
her  scope  and  the  fiery  glow  of  her  language 
leaves  an  abiding  conviction  that,  whatever  else 
she  closely  studied,  she  was  deeply  versed  in  the 
human  heart.  At  any  rate  she  was  unflinching 
in  her  pursuit  of  the  truth  about  her  fellow- 
creatures,  and  it  was  her  patient  and  honest 
scrutiny  of  Mr.  Smith  which  discovered  for  her 
Dr.  John's  humane  and  cheery  heroism. 

SJDNEr  LEE. 


Mr 


IV.  X.  Bland. 


ON    HAWORTH    MOOR. 


To  face  p.  248. 


THE   SPIRIT    OF   THE    MOORS 

By  HALLIWELL   SUTCLIFFE 

An  Address  delivered  to  the  Bronte  Society,  at 
MoRLEY,  ON  January  1 8,   1902. 

r 


FOREWORD 

"The  Spirit  of  the  Moors,"  written  long  ago, 
roused  odd  feelings  when  I  came  to  it  afresh. 
The  years  have  gone,  with  their  wear  and  tear  ; 
but  I  can  find  nothing  to  add,  nothing  to  take 
away.  None  but  those  who  are  bone  of  the 
moor's  bone — bred  of  the  heath,  reared  on  its 
sun  and  sleet  and  tempests — can  understand 
what  we  of  the  free  lands  know,  what  no  way- 
faring, save  the  Last  Adventure,  can  ever 
change.  And  on  the  far  side  of  that  Adventure 
there  will  be.  one  thinks,  a  richer  purple  on  the 
heather,  colours  even  more  mystical  and  changeful 
than  the  old  days  gave  when  sundown  came  to 
swart  old  Ha  worth  Moor.  In  outlying  farm- 
steads of  the  heath  there  are  peat-fires  burning 
still  that  have  been  alight  for  centuries.  Night 
by  night  the  good  wife  has  banked  them  up, 
dusted  away  the  ashes,  and  come  down  next  day 
to  stir  the  dying  embers  into  heat  again.  It  is 
so  with  the  heart  of  the  heath-bred  man.  His 
fires  may  seem  to  slumber,  with  dull,  grey  ash 
above  them  ;  but  at  the  core  there  is  a  red  and 
quiet  heat,  generations  old,  that  cannot  die, 

251 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

Out  of  it  all — the  moor's  splendour  and  its 
storm — its  man's  strength  and  woman's  coquetry, 
and  the  little,  ferny  glens  that  are  like  children 
singing  as  they  gather  posies — there  was  born  a 
spirit  caged  by  human  flesh.  It  was  a  hard  life 
Emily  Bronte  had,  and  her  body  would  have  been 
too  weak  to  bear  it,  if  it  had  not  been  for  this 
fire  at  her  heart  that  would  not  die.  Whenever 
she  was  away  from  Haworth  Moor,  she  sickened 
for  the  homeland  ;  it  was  not  the  ins-and-outs 
of  parish  life  she  needed,  but  the  spaces  of  the 
heath  that  swung  out,  free  and  faithful,  to 
Bouldsworth  and  the  further  crest  of  Pendle 
Hill. 

Out  of  her  travail  Wuthering  Heights  was  born, 
and  she  died  of  the  adventure.  And  it  was  well 
worth  while.  She  gave  her  life  for  that  one  book, 
and  it  lives  on  among  us — as  Shakespeare  lives, 
who  asked  for  no  knighthood  but  remembrance. 

When  the  dusk  comes  down  on  Haworth 
Moor,  and  I  walk  among  remembered  farmsteads, 
and  scent  the  lusty  fragrance  of  the  byres,  there 
is  one  scene  in  Wuthering  Heights  that  returns 
to  me  with  the  strength  and  grace  of  an  older 
day.  There  is  little  Cathy  tapping  at  the  window 
of  Wuthering  Heights,  asking  to  be  let  in, 
because  it  is  cold  in  the  Further  Lands  until  her 
mate  joins  her.  And  there  is  HeathcliflT,  dying 
hard  and  sullenly,  with  no  faith  in  the  Beyond 
to  help  him  through  the  time  of  separation. 

252 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

At  the  end  of  all,  there  are  primroses,  dewy- 
eyed  with  hope  and  faith  in  the  long  hereafter. 
As  long  as  there  is  a  strip  of  Northern  soil 
untouched  by  mills  and  smoke — as  long  as  the 
heather-lands  roam  wide  and  free,  a  sanctuary  for 
the  souls  that  reach  out  and  beyond  the  crude 
din  of  machinery — there  will  be  the  tapping  of 
little  Cathy  at  the  window,  and  smell  of  the 
heath,  and  the  magic  of  old  dreams. 

HALLIWELL   SUTCLIFFE. 
July   1 916. 


253 


THE   SPIRIT   OF  THE   MOORS 

It  has  been  well  said  that  when  truth  left  the 
valleys,  it  took  refuge  on  the  hills.  From  times 
of  old  the  hills  have  been  the  mothers  of  con- 
quering sons  ;  from  times  of  old  the  hills  have 
sheltered  every  primitive  virtue,  of  loyal  love 
and  worthy  hate,  of  mothers'  tenderness  and 
fathers'  pride  ;  from  of  old  the  soldiers  of  the 
world  have  gone  down  from  the  hill-tops  and 
have  prevailed.  This  is  true  of  the  hills  where 
cattle  graze,  and  sheep  clip  the  springy  grass ; 
it  is  truer  still  of  the  moorland  spaces  where 
grass  is  hard  in  the  winning,  where  ling  and  rush 
and  bilberry  fight  hand-to-hand  with  the  acres 
wrested  from  the  heath. 

Consider  !  Flodden  Field — that  last  decisive, 
desperate  fight — was  won  by  hill-fed  thew  and 
sinew  of  our  Craven  men.  It  is  the  same  through 
history.  The  race  has  not  been  to  the  swift  ; 
the  victors  have  been  slow  farmer-fellows,  who 
have  learned  endurance  from  wind  and  rain  and 
cutting  sleet,  who  have  been  taught  the  exquisite, 
long    lesson  of  patience  under  heavy   odds.     In 

254 


Die  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

skill  of  arms  alone  the  farmer  stands  supreme  — 
the  world's  history  is  his  history,  and  seed  and 
growing  blade  and  harvest-time  have  been  with 
him,  like  a  benediction,  when  the  ploughshare 
shaped  itself  into  a  pike,  and  the  sickle  straight- 
ened itself  into  a  broad  and  hiked  sword. 

Patience,  infinite  patience.  Toil,  infinite  toil. 
Faith  beyond  the  limits  of  bread,  which  is  oft- 
times  doubtful.  These  are  the  moorland  virtues. 
The  very  ling,  the  crowberry,  the  late-budding 
bracken,  show  the  same  tough  fibre  ;  the  men 
of  the  moors,  the  plants  of  the  moors,  are  one 
in  spirit  and  endurance.  What  would  come  to 
the  ling  and  the  bracken,  if  they  had  no  heart  to 
meet  the  winter  storms  ?  What  would  chance 
to  the  moorland  farmers  if  they  sank,  as  lesser 
men  would  do,  beneath  the  weight  of  cold  in 
winter,  of  drought  in  summer,  of  peevish  autumn 
storms  .''  Life  is  a  fight  to  the  moor-man  always, 
and  for  this  reason  he  is  staunch  in  hatred,  loyal 
in  love,  quick  to  bear  arms  against  the  adversary. 

He  is  no  saint,  this  man  of  the  moors.  He 
is  no  sinner.  He  feels  the  wind  in  his  teeth, 
and  he  fights  it ;  and  now  and  then  he  is  answer- 
able for  dread  deeds,  which  lesser  folk  can  neither 
understand  nor  judge.  One  knows  of  midnights 
— historic  now,  so  far  as  country  tales  can 
make  them — when  the  Squire  drank  level  with 
the  poacher,  and  battered  faces  smiled  at  recol- 
lection   of  some    moon-mad    prank    played    long 

255 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

ago.  We  know  of  superstitions  which  set  the 
hair  on  end  when  passing  lonely  heaths.  There 
is  the  glamour  and  the  terror  of  the  Dog  on 
all  the  moonlit  wastes  of  heath  that  lie  between 
Haworth  and  old  Bouldsworth  Hill.  It  is  a 
land  of  strength,  and  fear,  and  witchery. 

And  yet  the  voice  of  grouse  and  plover,  of 
snipe  and  moor-fowl,  was  stronger  than  man's 
voice  till  Emily  Bronte  came.  The  outer  world 
knew  nothing  of  the  storm  and  fret  of  Haworth 
Moor  till  Wuthering  Heights  was  born.  The 
ling  had  bloomed  in  purple  glory — the  crow- 
berry  had  ripened  its  black-purple  berries — dawn 
and  sunset  had  weaved  glory  from  the  waste — 
and  none  had  told  the  world  how  sweet  these 
things  can  be.  And  then  she  came,  and  gave 
us  fVuthering  Heights^  and  died  before  the  song 
in  her  had  reached  its  deepest  compass. 

These  things  of  the  heath  are  hard  to  speak 
about  ;  religion  of  any  type  is  hard  in  the 
telling  to  one  who  holds  the  faith ;  and  to 
attempt  praise  of  Emily  Bronte  is  to  praise  the 
purple  of  dawn,  the  gold  and  red  of  sunset,  the 
full  and  satisfying  glory  of  nature  in  her  highest 
moods.  She  came  at  a  time  when  the  novel 
was  at  last  the  true  expression  of  mind  and  soul 
and  heart ;  she  came  also  at  a  time  when  the 
older  traditions  still  held  a  dying  power,  when 
the  green  hue  of  sentimentality  sicklied  o'er  the 
live   passions   of  bare   human   nature  ;    yet   she 

256 


ES   H 

<  y. 

^^ 

c:  o 

.1^. 

2  as 

::; 

as 

n 

1^ 

8« 

C 

as  5- 

W   K 

> 

The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

knew  what  she  knew,  and  never  once  did  she 
waver  in  the  expression  of  her  faith. 

Emily  Bronte  is  the  Joan  of  Arc  of  literature. 
Joan  of  Arc  had  all  the  trappings  of  evident 
romance.  She  rode  in  armour  to  the  fray,  and, 
a  woman,  fought  with  men  in  open  battle.  She 
is  a  picture  in  history  such  as  the  populace  love  ; 
she  has  the  limelight  on  her  always,  and  it  is 
easy  for  us  all  to  applaud  her  heroism.  Emily 
Bronte  had  none  of  these  things ;  she  was  a 
pale,  great-boned,  unhappy  girl  who  shunned  her 
fellows ;  she  had  no  single  outward  gift  that 
could  appeal  to  a  man's  senses  ;  she  knew  no 
lover  ;  yet,  with  it  all,  she  has  drawn  for  us  so 
stupendous  a  picture  of  human  love,  of  human 
hate,  of  human  yearning  after  the  impossible, 
that  men  and  women,  who  have  known  passion, 
know  also  that  she  held  passion's  secret  in  her 
pen.  Whence  came  it ,?  Whence  comes  the 
pregnant  sap  in  springtime  trees,  whence  comes 
the  unalterable  motherhood  of  kine,  of  birds  at 
mating-time,  of  women  in  their  happiness  ? 
None  can  tell.  It  is  God-given,  and  that  is  all 
we  know. 

We  who  have  been  playmates  with  the  heath, 
and  bedfellows  to  the  whistling  winds  and  rain 
and  winter  snow  of  Haworth  Moor,  know  that 
the  dullest  line  of  Wuthering  Heights  has  that 
deepest  interest  of  all — the  interest  of  naked 
passion   and  naked    truth.     It   is   the   one    book 

257  R 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

of  the  world,  in  that  it  could  not,  in  a  single 
word,  have  been  written  otherwise.  It  is  the 
one  book,  of  the  world,  in  that  it  shows  the  moor- 
life,  as  it  were,  reflected  in  a  tarn  of  crystal 
clearness.  It  has  no  morality,  it  advocates  no 
creed  ;  its  teaching  is  the  teaching  of  the  wind 
as  it  sweeps  from  Lancashire  across  old  Haworth 
Moor ;  it  is  built  upon  the  rock  of  Nature, 
who  is  pitiless  and  tender,  angelic  and  demoniac, 
all  in  the  one  breath.  The  world  has  bowed  at 
the  shrine  of  many  conquerors — Cassar,  Alex- 
ander, and  the  rest — but  there  is  one  Heathcliff, 
and  one  only.  Not  Alexander  at  his  greatest — 
when  he  was  sighing  for  fresh  worlds  to  conquer 
— could  have  imagined  a  hero  of  HeathclifF's 
fibre.  Not  Cleopatra  at  her  softest  could  have 
pictured  a  heroine  so  tender,  so  illusive,  and  so 
complete,  as  Cathy.     The  thing  is  witchery. 

Take  Heathcliff  from  his  surroundings,  and 
what  have  we  ?  A  morose,  self-centred  savage, 
who  loves  his  fleshly  idol  with  a  passion  scarcely 
decent.  But  set  Heathcliff  in  the  midst  of  bog 
and  heath  and  waving  bracken,  and  he's  a  man 
framed  after  the  likeness  of  a  god.  He  knows 
no  law,  save  of  the  wind  and  the  whistling 
plover  ;  he  knows  no  obstacle  to  love,  save  of 
the  woman's  heart  ;  he  is  complete,  a  man  in 
the  swiftness  and  the  surety  of  his  passions — 
and  yet  a  superhuman  creature,  in  that  he  is 
never  less  than  himself,  never  false  by  word  or 

258 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

deed   to  the  past    that    lies   behind    him,   to  the 
fate  that  lies  ahead. 

Indeed,  it  is  this  completeness  of  each  character 
in  the  book  that  makes  Wuthering  Heights  a 
masterpiece  of  art.  The  natural  truth — of  scene- 
drawing  and  of  the  play  of  passion — alone  would 
have  held  us  spellbound  ;  but  by  its  art — a 
delicacy  of  art  surprising  in  so  rough  a  tale — 
it  claims  our  quieter  love  upon  a  second — -nay, 
a  twentieth  reading.  The  very  looseness  of  the 
narrative,  the  casual  coming  of  a  stranger  to  the 
moors,  and  his  interrupted  sittings  with  the 
teller  of  the  tale,  all  help  to  conceal  the  steady 
handling  of  a  story  such  as  no  brain  but  Emily 
Bronte's  could  have  conceived,  such  as  no  pen 
but  hers  could  have  set  down.  It  is  not  Heath- 
cliff*  only  who  satisfies  us  ;  it  is  not  Cathy  only  ; 
it  is  each  actor  in  this  moorside  drama,  whether 
a  farm  hind  or  a  nurse,  a  Squire  of  the  valley- 
lands,  or  a  hulking  ploughboy  of  the  uplands. 
Joseph,  Pharisee,  farm-hand,  and  misanthrope, 
who  thrives  on  a  sort  of  rough-edged  joy  in  his 
own  righteousness  and  in  the  sins  of  other  folk, 
is  as  much  a  bit  of  Haworth  Moor  as  the  rocks 
that  underlie  its  heather  and  the  sleeting  wind 
that  whistles  from  the  wastes  of  Stanbury.  Nellie 
the  nurse,  a  little  prim,  a  little  hard  in  the  shell 
and  vastly  soft  in  the  kernel,  full  of  housewife's 
maxims  and  the  bustling,  tart  satisfaction  with 
things  as  they  are,  which  distinguishes  the  woman 

259 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

of  her  hands — she,  too,  is  ready  at  this  day  to 
greet  you  and  to  brew  a  cup  of  tea  for  you  in 
that  happy,  storm-swept  land  which  lies  between 
the  edge  of  Yorkshire  and  the  edge  of  Lan- 
cashire. 

And  what  of  Cathy  ?  Ah,  there's  the  south- 
west wind  about  her  !  The  south-west  wind, 
that  comes  in  summer  down  the  wooded  denes 
and  clefts  of  our  grim  moorland,  the  wind  that 
has  the  softness  of  the  flowering  ling  about  it, 
the  bitter-sweet  of  peat  and  bogland,  the  nameless 
scents  that  are  born  every  year,  clean,  sharp  and 
fragrant,  when  the  moorland  flowers  awake, 
and  the  primrose  blows  in  sheltered  hollows, 
and  every  mistal,  shouldering  green  fields,  gives 
out  its  witching  odour  of  the  kine.  She  is  just 
this,  the  heroine  of  Wuthering  Heights^  and  we 
might  as  well  criticize  the  wind  of  summer  as 
take  her  character  to  pieces,  bit  by  bit,  as  is  our 
modern  fashion,  and  set  a  price  upon  each  word 
and  action.  Like  HeathclifF,  she  is  above 
praise  or  censure  ;  her  will  is  the  will  of  the 
moor- top  and  the  sky,  and  we  are  satisfied. 
We  are  more  ;  we  are  enamoured,  and  Wuthering 
Heights  is  at  war  with  womankind  in  that  we 
dare  not,  in  our  ideal  of  her  sex,  stoop  lower 
than  this  Cathy,  with  her  strange  eeriness  and 
stranger  warmth  of  breathing  flesh  and  blood, 
with  her  perverseness  that  is  sinless  and  her 
passion   that   is    strained — as    it   were,    through 

260 


ne  spirit  of  the  Moors 

gossamer  threads  of  fairy-weaving — until  it 
seems,  not  passion,  but  clear  water  from  the 
well  which  is  needed  to  dilute  the  rough-edged 
wine  of  HeathclifF's  frenzy.  She  is  a  woman 
to  make  men  lightly  sell  their  birthright — and 
sell  it  with  a  laugh  upon  their  lips.  All  feeling 
comes  back  ultimately  to  odours,  and  Cathy  is 
to  us  what  lavender  is  at  flowering  time,  what 
rosemary  is,  with  all  its  sweetness  of  remembrance, 
what  wild-roses  are  when  they  flower  between 
the  drooping  tendrils   of  the  honeysuckle. 

Perhaps  she  is  the  truest  note  in  all  the  book, 
as  possibly  the  short-lived  summer  of  the  up- 
lands is  the  interpreter  of  storms  that  have 
gone  before,  of  tempests  that  will  surely  follow. 
Amid  the  roughness,  the  violence,  the  blows 
and  oaths  and  hardships  of  the  tale,  as  we  get 
these  brief,  ensnaring  glimpses  of  the  girl,  as 
we  hear  the  pulse  of  Heathcliff^  beat  high  and 
strong,  and  see  the  love-look  in  his  gipsy  eyes, 
we  are  aware  of  sunshine  and  the  scent  of  hay. 

Heathclifi^,  for  his  part,  was  not  born  of  the 
moors,  and  in  this,  too,  there  is  a  strange 
surety  of  instinct.  Had  he  been  moor-born,  he 
would  have  been  tied  by  old  tradition ;  as  it 
was,  he  came,  a  nameless  waif  picked  up  in 
Liverpool,  and.  ran  wild  about  the  heath  with 
no  responsibility  to  forbears  or  to  family  pride. 
How  that  picture  of  his  coming  to  the  Heights 
lives    with     us !     A  swarthy   slip    of  Pagandom, 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

brought  home  on  a  dark  night  beneath  the 
master's  cloak.  Even  at  this  first  moment  of 
our  seeing  him,  we  feel  the  tragedy  of  after- 
years  loom  mistily  ahead  ;  from  the  first  he  is 
at  war  with  all  upon  the  moor,  except  little  Cathy 
and  the  doting  master  ;  from  the  first  he  is 
acquiescent  under  ill-treatment,  so  long  as  he 
wins  his  point  at  last ;  from  the  first,  too,  he 
takes  up  the  thread  of  that  passion  for  Catherine 
Earnshaw  which  is  to  grow  to  bitter  fruit  one 
day.  He  grows  from  inch  to  inch — good  bone 
and  muscle,  all  of  it — and  lives  upon  the  moors, 
and  sucks  the  meaning  of  the  wind  and  storm  as 
other  lads  suck  lollipops.  Nothing  affrights  him, 
except  grace  and  gentleness  ;  when  he  and  Cathy 
roam  down  to  Linton  Manor — a  well-matched 
pair  of  fly-by-nights — and  the  dog  fixes  its  curved 
teeth  in  the  girl's  ankle,  he  is  afraid,  lad  as  he 
is,  only  for  her  pain,  and  tries,  with  a  cool  eye 
for  ways  and  means  which  older  men  might 
envy,  to  force  open  the  foam-licked  jaws  with 
the  nearest  lump  of  rock.  When  he  is  beaten, 
bruised  by  the  master's  jealous  son,  he  never 
whimpers — nor  forgets.  He  is  daunted  only 
when  Cathy — little  Cathy,  who  had  been  his 
guardian  angel  and  his  scapegrace  playmate — 
comes  back  after  a  five-weeks'  visit  to  the  Lintons, 
all  dainty  in  her  frippery,  and  minded  to  play 
the  great  lady  as  only  a  child  can  play  it.  Then, 
for  the  first  time,  Heathcliff"  is  afraid,  as  a  man 

262 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

is  afraid  of  crushing  a  flower  beneath  his  thick, 
nailed  boots  ;  for  the  first  time  he  is  jealous,  with 
a  premonition  that  she  will  nevermore  be  to  him 
what  she  has  been.  The  rift  grows  wider.  On 
one  side  is  the  girl,  dainty,  generous,  headstrong  ; 
on  the  other  is  the  lad,  who  has  never  learned 
that  even  flower-like  lassies  are  to  be  won  by 
long  endurance.  He  is  as  the  wind  and  God's 
moorland  made  him  ;  so  long  as  he  is  free  to  blow 
whither  he  listeth,  he  is  musical  and  gay  ;  but, 
soon  as  he  is  thwarted,  his  note  turns  to  sullen 
wildness,  as  of  tempest  beating  on  thick,  hill-top 
walls.  Wider  the  rift  grows  and  wider ;  he  sees 
the  gentler  folk  from  the  valleys  come  mincing 
and  smirking  into  that  grim  house  of  Wuthering 
Heights  which  asked  for  sterner  visitors  ;  he  sees 
his  Cathy  grow  daily  fonder  of  soft  speeches, 
and  soft  clothing,  and  soft  ways  ;  small  wonder 
that  he  fled  into  that  dismal  prison-house  called 
"Self,"  and  showed  the  sullen  bars  of  hate  to 
all  intruders,  even  to  Cathy  of  the  flower-like 
face  and  dancing  heart. 

Our  love  for  Heathclifi^  would  have  gone  had 
he  done  otherwise.  The  girl  loved  him — yes, 
even  in  those  days  she  loved  him ! — and  she 
played  with  her  love  as  women  will  play  with 
apple-bloom  in  Spring,  forgetful  that  they  are 
robbing  earth  of  her  just  harvest.  Because  her 
love  was  in  blossom  only,  not  in  fruit,  she  chose 
to  play  with  it  ;  and  afterwards  the  dead  petals 

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charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

showered  about  her,  and  she  wondered,  all  in  a 
maid's  way,  who  had  shaken  the  branches  of 
that  Tree  of  Love.  And  HeathclifF,  mean- 
while— blunt,  a  man — did  not  ask  whether  this 
were  sport  or  earnest  ;  all  things  were  earnest 
to  him — blows,  and  winter  snow,  and  promise 
of  the  harvest — and  he  thought  that  Cathy  was 
forgetting.  He  had  a  right  to  think  so  ;  and 
there  was  none  at  Wuthering  Heights  well-versed 
enough  in  trickery  to  tell  him  of  the  gulf  that 
lies  between  what  a  woman  feels  and  what  she 
shows.  His  misery  turned  inward,  like  a 
malignant  growth  ;  he  must  have  all  or  nothing 
— so  much  the  moors  had  taught  this  gipsy — and, 
since  he  had  lost  some  of  Cathy,  he  would  forfeit 
all  that  lay  between  herself  and  him.  He  ceased 
to  wash — he  did  not  speak  when  company  was 
forced  upon  him — he  did  not  trouble  to  un-arch 
his  sullen,  gipsy  brows,  nor  to  let  his  heart  speak 
out  of  the  dark,  gipsy  eyes.  And  most  of  all 
he  showed  those  outward  signs  of  inward  misery 
when  Cathy,  mistress  of  his  fate,  was  near.  And 
she,  who  had  learned  no  lesson  such  as  Eve 
learned  after  her  girlhood  was  over  and  done 
with,  must  flout  him  for  a  boor.  And  so  the 
gulf  widened,  deepened,  and  Edgar  Linton — a 
toy-terrier  of  a  man — came  walking  down  her 
side  of  the  valley. 

She   married   Linton.     It  was  inevitable,   pre- 
destined.    And    she    repented  ;    that,    too,    was 

264 


'J he  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

predestined  and  inevitable.  No  throstle  in  its 
wicker  cage  was  ever  wilder  with  its  wings  against 
the  bars  than  Catherine  Linton  when  she  learned 
what  wedded  life  must  be  henceforward.  She  had 
known  the  winds  and  the  rains,  even  as  HeathclifF 
had  known  them  ;  she  had  lived  with  men,  who, 
it  is  true,  swore  hard  upon  occasion,  but  who 
understood  what  is  written  upon  the  naked  heart 
of  life;  and  yet  she  was  mated  with  one  who, 
if  he  had  gentler  manners,  had  also  a  vastly 
tender  skin.  HeathclifF — her  woman's  instinct 
told  her  that — had  loved  her  with  a  man's  passion ; 
her  husband  loved  her  as  a  petted  spaniel  loves 
its  mistress. 

And  so  a  second  rift  grew  wide  and  wider, 
and  surely  the  wife  was  not  to  blame.  Linton 
should  have  mated  in  the  valleys  ;  he  had  no 
place  with  such  as  Catherine.  True  he  came  out 
in  braver  colours  later,  but  over-late  to  convince 
us  ;  and  that,  too,  is  a  triumph  of  character- 
drawing,  for  the  author  never  meant  that  we 
should  see  any  mate  but  HeathclifF  for  Catherine 
of  the  Heights.  Like  the  wind,  his  only  tutor, 
HeathclifF  disappears  after  Cathy's  marriage  ;  like 
the  wind  he  reappears,  and  woos  the  sister  of  his 
rival  ;  like  the  wind  that  riots  in  the  autumn, 
he  overthrows  well-garnered  stacks,  and  while 
he  woos  the  sister  of  his  enemy,  he  snatches  a 
wild  meeting  from  his  enemy's  wife — from  Cathy, 
who  was  his  by  all  laws  of  fellowship  and  love. — 

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and  leaves  poor  Edgar  Linton,  with  a  flicker  of 
late-found  bravery,  to  marshal  his  gardener  and 
his  stable-boys  in  battle  array.  And  through  it 
all  the  author's  mind  is  clear — she  knows  that 
HeathclifF  was  robbed  of  his  mate,  and  she  deals 
out  the  punishment,  even  as  fate  deals  out  its 
punishment,  to  innocent  and  guilty.  Never, 
perhaps,  in  any  book  has  there  been  less  regard 
for  obvious  and  untrue  conclusions  ;  there  is  no 
moralizing,  no  appeal  to  blind  maxims  and  blinder 
powers  of  vengeance,  because  Heathcliff  comes  to 
claim  his  own  ;  the  facts  are  stated — facts  inevit- 
able as  the  storms  that  lay  the  hard-won  harvest 
low — and  we  are  left  to  gather  in  our  fingers  the 
threads  of  a  story  inevitable,  true,  and  therefore 
just.  What  temptation  would  have  beset  a 
writer  of  weaker  fibre  to  point,  at  this  juncture, 
a  moral  so  trite  as  to  be  wearisome  !  The  toy 
terrier  of  a  husband  might  have  been  set  in  a 
frame  of  martyrdom,  and  all  his  weakness  for- 
gotten amid  a  lurid  tale  of  all  his  wrongs  and  all 
poor  HeathclifFs  villanies.  But  Emily  Bronte 
is  above  such  meannesses  ;  she  tells  what  is,  and 
in  her  heart,  as  we  have  said,  she  knows  that 
Heathcliff  is  the  worthier  man.  As  for  Cathy- 
unhappy,  ill-mated,  full  of  bodily  weakness  and 
aware  of  a  new  life  in  her,  a  life  that  is  not  hers 
and  Heathcliff's,  but  hers  and  Linton's — Cathy 
knows  not  what  to  say  when  her  gipsy-lover 
comes    and    shatters,    with    a    single     kiss,    the 

266 


'The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

mockery  of  wedded  life  which  she  has  scarcely 
attempted  to  render  real.  Cathy  knows  not  what 
to  say  ;  women  rarely  do  if  there  is  anything 
at  stake  ;  but  what  she  feels  is  rendered  clear  by 
a  hundred  subtle   touches. 

Oh,  it  is  wrong,  according  to  straight  lines 
and  maxims  ordered  like  a  figure  of  geometry  ! 
Yet  she  had  as  little  power  to  help  her  gladness 
as  the  thrush  has,  when  for  a  moment  it  sees 
its  cage  door  opened  and  feels  the  singing  wind 
of  heaven  come  beating  in.  HeathclifF  was  hers, 
and  she  was  his ;  they  had  wedded  long  ago, 
with  the  hill-tops  for  their  church,  with  laverock, 
grouse,  and  plover  for  their  choir ;  and  no 
haphazard  marriage  of  the  flesh  could  alter  that. 

Mark  the  clean  way  of  it.  This  scene  with 
HeathclifF,  who  comes  to  supplant  the  lawful 
husband  ;  there's  never  a  touch  of  squalor  or 
of  sin  in  it  ;  it  is  no  vulgar  intrigue  between  a 
woman  tired  of  constancy  and  a  man  who  preys 
upon  his  neighbour's  property  ;  it  is  a  scene  of 
natural  tempest,  of  unavoidable,  clean  storm, 
as  when  the  clouds,  full-charged  with  lightning, 
and  weary,  like  the  kine  at  milking-time  for 
casing  of  their  burden,  break  out  in  rain  and 
shattered  tempest-wrack.  The  man  and  the 
woman  do  not  halt  to  ask  if  they  love  each 
other  ;  as  well  might  they  question  the  number 
of  their  limbs,  or  the  knowledge  that  they  lived. 

This  one  scene  is  the  triumph  and  the  key- 
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note  of  the  book  ;  and  after  it  is  done,  after 
HeathclifF  has  vanished,  gipsy-like,  into  the  larger 
spaces  of  the  moor,  after  Cathy  lies  down  upon 
a  narrow  bed  and  courts  delirium,  we  realize 
the  wonder  and  the  witchery  of  this  passion 
which  is  truth.  Cathy  has  lost  what  little  sense 
of  worldly  prudence  she  has  known  ;  she  lies 
there  in  her  weakness,  and  her  heart  is  given 
to  us,  naked,  plain  to  be  read.  And  over  that 
suffering,  wilful,  madly  beating  heart,  there  is 
written,  across  and  across,  the  one  name  Heath- 
clifF. When  she  remembers  her  husband,  she 
despises  and  is  weary  of  him  ;  and  again  she 
goes  over  well-remembered  scenes  that  she  and 
Heathcliff  have  lived  through  together.  What 
they  dreamed,  of  fairies  and  of  hobgoblins  on 
Penistone  Crag  ;  how  they  had  listened  to  the 
wind  as  it  blew  through  the  stark  old  house 
of  Wuthering  Heights  ;  little  snatches  of  moor- 
lore,  learned  long  ago  in  company  with  her  mate. 
Perhaps  none  but  a  moor-man  can  understand 
the  feeling  that  one  passage  from  this  drama 
always  wakes  in  one.  It  is  after  Cathy  has  lain 
long  abed,  fasting  and  fevered ;  she  takes  the 
pillow  between  her  little  teeth  and  tears  it  into 
shreds — but  the  scene  cannot  be  described  in 
any  other  words  but  Emily  Bronte's. 

Tossing  about,  she  increased  her  feverish  bewilderment  to 
madness,  and  tore  the  pillow  with  her  teeth  ;  then  raising 

268 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

herself  up  all  burning,  desired  that  I  would  open  the  window. 
We  were  in  the  middle  of  winter,  the  wind  blew  strong  from 
the  north-east,  and  I  objected. 

Both  the  expressions  ftitting  over  her  face,  and  the  changes 
of  her  moods,  began  to  alarm  me  terribly  ;  and  brought  to 
my  recollection  her  former  illness,  and  the  doctor's  injunction 
that  she  should  not  be  crossed. 

A  minute  previously  she  was  violent  :  now,  supported  on 
one  arm,  and  not  noticing  my  refusal  to  obey  her,  she  seemed 
to  find  childish  diversion  in  pulling  the  feathers  from  the 
rents  she  had  just  made,  and  ranging  them  on  the  sheet 
according  to  their  different  species  :  her  mind  had  strayed  to 
other  associations. 

"  That's  a  turkey's,"  she  murmured  to  herself;  "and  this 
is  a  wild  duck's  ;  and  this  is  a  pigeon's.  Ah,  they  put 
pigeons'  feathers  in  the  pillows — no  wonder  I  couldn't  die  ! 
Let  me  take  care  to  throw  it  on  the  floor  when  I  lie  down. 
And  here  is  a  moorcock's  ;  and  this — I  should  know  it  among 
a  thousand — it's  a  lapwing's.  Bonny  bird  ;  wheeling  over 
our  heads  in  the  middle  of  the  moor.  It  wanted  to  get 
to  its  nest,  for  the  clouds  touched  the  swells,  and  it  felt  rain 
coming.  This  feather  was  picked  up  from  the  heath,  the 
bird  was  not  shot — we  saw  its  nest  in  the  winter,  full  of  little 
skeletons.  HeathclifF  set  a  trap  over  it,  and  the  old  ones 
dare  not  come.  I  made  him  promise  he'd  never  shoot  a 
lapwing  after  that,  and  he  didn't.  Yes,  here  are  more  ! 
Did  he  shoot  my  lapwings,  Nellie  ?  Are  they  red,  any  of 
them  ?     Let  me  look." 

"  Give  over  with  that  baby-work  I  "  I  interrupted,  drag- 
ging the  pillow  away,  and  turning  the  holes  towards  the 
mattress,  for  she  was  removing  its  contents  by  handfuls. 
"  Lie  down  and  shut  your  eyes  ;  you're  wandering.  There's 
a  mess  !     The  down  is  flying  about  like  snow." 

That  gives  us  all  the  past  in  half  a  dozen 
lines.     The    latent     cruelty    of    HeathclifF,    the 

26g 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

power  of  Cathy  over  his  cruelty,  the  intimate, 
deep  knowledge  of  the  moors  they  shared — all 
are  brought  before  us  as  the  scent  of  heather 
brings  back  forgotten  scenes,  forgotten  hopes, 
forgotten  lessons  taught  us  by  our  mother, 
Nature.  That  mention  of  the  lapwing — it  is 
almost  weird  in  its  very  fitness,  like  the  keystone 
of  a  graceful  arch.  The  peewit  is  a  well-nigh 
sacred  bird  to  the  moor-folk,  for  it  voices  their 
own  feelings ;  and  HeathclifF,  untrammelled 
by  tradition,  is  restrained  in  cruelty  by  the 
voice  of  one  who  has  learned,  from  the  far-off 
fathers,  the  sanctity  of  the  shrill-piping  lap- 
wing. 

What  is  the  charm  this  heath-born  girl  holds 
in  her  pen-point  ?  She  cannot  go  astray  ; 
whether  she  pictures  the  strength  of  passion,  the 
weakness  of  glad  self-surrender,  the  least  first 
signs  of  springtime  or  of  storm  upon  the  heath, 
she  always  satisfies.  She  knows,  and  she  is 
true  to  knowledge  ;  she  gives  us  all  the  things 
that  are,  and  passes  by  the  things  that  valley- 
folk  count  worthy,  with  a  courage  scarcely 
human. 

They  tell  us  Emily  Bronte  never  mixed  with 
her  fellows.  Her  own  sister  gravely  states  that 
she  knew  as  little  of  the  world's  life  as  a  nun 
knows  of  the  folk  who  pass  her  convent  gate. 
Yet  they  forget  that  smoke  betokens  fire,  that 
Wuthering     Heights     could     never     have     been 

270 


T'he  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

written  by  one  who  did  not  know  the  secret 
places  and  the  secret  passions  of  the  moor  ;  they 
forget,  too,  that  Emily  Bronte,  even  in  death, 
was  solitary,  reliant,  and  alone.  Her  own  family 
— they  have  confessed  it — feared  to  skirt  the 
fence  that  she  had  raised  between  herself  and  her 
own  class ;  yet  they  did  not  guess  that  she 
sought  her  own  companionship  in  her  own  way, 
and  that  the  farmer-folk  of  Haworth  were  more 
to  her  than  all  the  genteel  worldlings  who  gather 
round  a  parsonage.  She  did  not  care  for 
parochial  life  ;  the  buzz  of  scandal,  the  clatter 
of  tea-cups,  all  the  polite  instruments  that  we 
have  devised  for  destroying  our  neighbours' 
happiness  and  our  own,  had  neither  interest  nor 
attraction  for  her.  She  was  silent,  unapproach- 
able, amid  such  matters  ;  but,  once  her  feet 
were  set  upon  that  narrow  and  that  lone  green 
way  which  led  towards  the  heath,  she  was  her- 
self. Proof,  beyond  the  pages  of  Wuthering 
Heights^  is  not  needed  to  convince  us  that  she 
knew,  as  a  native  knows  it,  that  wilder  world 
of  ling,  and  peat,  and  marsh,  and  lone  farm- 
steading,  which  lies  beyond  and  above  the  world 
of  little  folk.  Her  dialect  alone  is  witness  to 
her  knowledge  ;  it  is  true  to  the  old  folk-speech 
of  Haworth  and  Stanbury  Moor,  in  the  days 
before  steam  and  all  its  million  evils  came  to 
undo  the  primitive,  straight  honesty  of  the  hill- 
men.     Her  knowledge  of  the  springs  of  thought 

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Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

is  true.  Her  instinct  of  the  things  that  matter, 
as  apart  from  the  things  that  serve  to  pass  an 
idle  hour,  is  direct  as  a  north  wind  blowing  over 
winter  snow. 

It  is  part  of  fate's  humour  that  truth  should 
be  late-born  ;  it  is  part  of  fate's  humour  that 
Charlotte  Bronte  should  have  written,  almost 
wholly  in  apology,  her  preface  to  Wuthering 
Heights.  The  'prentice  hand  pleaded  for  leniency 
towards  his  master's  work,  and  what  was 
written  in  flame  and  smoke  of  a  soul's  travail 
was  sent  out  to  the  world  with  a  foreword 
written  by  one  who,  great  in  her  own  way,  had 
yet  no  intimacy  with  the  deeper  springs  of  life, 
of  passion  and  of  destiny. 

The  book  itself,  by  grace  of  fortune,  is  still 
with  us.  The  spirit  of  the  moors  is  still  with 
us,  though,  like  the  Covenanters  of  old,  it 
hides  among  the  highest  hill-tops.  Perhaps  it 
would  be  well  to  finish  here,  with  these  as  our 
last  words ;  yet  somehow  there  is  something 
left  still  to  be  said  of  Wuthering  Heights — and 
something,  too,  of  that  hapless  brother  of  Emily 
Bronte's  who  has  found  few  kindly  judges  in 
the  world. 

Again  the  book  must  speak  for  itself,  as  a 
weaker  page  cannot  speak.  Soon  after  the  crucial 
scene  with  HeathclifF,  soon  after  those  wild 
memories  of  days  gone  by,  we  find  Edgar 
Linton  in  his  wife's  chamber. 

372 


Si/C'^ 


THE   WITHINS   (VVUTHEKING   HEIGHTS). 


To  face  p.  272. 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

At  first  she  gave  him  no  glance  of  recognition  ;  he  was 
invisible  to  her  abstracted  gaze. 

The  delirium  was  not  fixed,  however  ;  having  weaned  her 
eyes  from  contemplating  the  outer  darkness,  by  degrees  she 
centred  her  attention  on  him,  and  discovered  who  it  was 
that  held  her. 

"  Ah  !  you  are  come,  are  you,  Edgar  Linton  ? "  she  said 
with  angry  animation.  "  You  are  one  of  those  things  which 
are  ever  found  when  least  wanted,  and  when  you  are  wanted, 
never  !  I  suppose  we  shall  have  plenty  of  lamentations  now 
— I  see  we  shall — but  they  can't  keep  mc  from  my  narrow 
home  out  yonder  :  my  resting-place,  where  I'm  bound  before 
Spring  is  over !  There  it  is  :  not  among  the  Lintons,  mind, 
under  the  chapel  roof,  but  in  the  open  air  with  a  headstone  ; 
and  you  may  please  yourself  whether  you  go  to  them  or 
come  to  me  !  " 

"  Catherine,  what  have  you  done  .'' "  commenced  tht 
master.  "  Am  I  nothing  to  you  any  more  r  Do  you  love 
that  wretch  Heath " 

"Hush!"  cried  Mrs.  Linton.  "Hush,  this  moment! 
You  mention  that  name  and  I  end  the  matter  instantly,  by 
a  spring  from  the  window  !  What  you  touch  at  present  you 
may  have  ;  but  my  soul  will  be  on  that  hill-top  before  you 
lay  hands  on  me  again.  I  don't  want  you,  Edgar  :  I'm 
past  wanting  you." 


Again  the  true  note  is  struck.  "  What  you 
touch  at  present  you  may  have  ;  but  my  soul  will  be 
on  that  hill-top  before  you  lay  your  hands  on  me 
again  !  "  There  we  have  the  expression  of  wifely 
duty — of  bodily  duty,  that  is,  because  she  had 
never  had  more  to  promise  Edgar  Linton.  There 
we  have  the  yearning  for  the  hill-tops,  always  the 
heathery,   curlew-haunted  hill-tops.     There,   too, 

273  s 


Charlotte  Bront?  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

we  have  that  choice  of  burial  ground  which 
afterwards,  and  in  a  cruder  fashion,  was  to  mark 
the  last  moments  of  HeathclifF.  Even  in  death 
they  were  not  divided,  so  far  as  the  soul  and 
aching  heart  went ;  and  their  marriage,  so  far 
as  this  world  went,  was  to  be  consummated  up 
yonder  on  the  heights,  when  clay  met  clay 
against  the  riven  coffin  boards.  Ah,  surely  this 
was  love — love  of  the  old  fashion,  that  dreaded 
neither  storm  nor  charnel-house.  We  have 
grown  too  weak  for  such  strong  meat  perhaps  ; 
yet  surely  the  dullest  ears  can  hear  the  music 
of  it,  and  the  truth.  As  well  deny  the  wind's 
power,  or  the  sun's  ;  this  love  of  Catherine  and 
HeathclifF  falls  upon  us,  note  by  note,  with  a 
persuasion  which  is  neither  man's  nor  woman's, 
but  which  belongs  to  the  singing  wind,  and  the 
big,  wild  voice  of  a  Nature  who  will  have  her 
way. 

If  [Nature  did  not  lead  Emily  Bronte — nay, 
rather  go  hand  in  hand  with  her — who  did  } 
Follow  the  after-plot  of  Wuthering  Heights^ 
and  mark  its  conclusion,  inevitable,  satisfying. 
Cathy  dies,  and  henceforth  there  is  the  one  big 
figure  in  the  book — the  figure  of  HeathclifF, 
who  remembers — remembers,  as  better  men 
forget.  There  is  no  second  love  for  him  ;  there 
could  be  none ;  and  again  it  is  inevitable  that 
he  should  grow  soured  beyond  belief,  savage 
beyond  conception,  when  all  that  spells  the  world 

374 


T'he  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

to  him  is  gone.  His  gaze  is  upon  this  world, 
not  upon  the  promise  of  the  next  ;  lose  Cathy 
in  the  flesh,  and  he  loses  her  for  ever,  is  Heath- 
clifFs  guiding  thought ;  and  'again  he  snarls, 
and  growls,  and  curses,  just  as  the  north  wind 
does  between  the  bleak  wall-crevices  of  Haworth 
Moor. 

Yet  in  HeathclifF,  too,  there  is  that  stuff  of 
soul  which  ranges  out  beyond  the'  coffin, '  the 
mould,  the  blind  worm  that  hides'  beneath  the 
sod.  We  are  all  of  us,  just  now  and  then,  a 
little  greater  than  the  flesh  that  hems  us  in  ; 
and  Heathcliff",  strongeri  to  the  last  than  we 
poor  folk  can  be,  is  greatest  at  the  moment  of 
his  death. 

We  will  not  pry  upon  those  final  scenes  ;  we 
will  not  dissect  them,  nor  profane  ;  enough 
that,  amid  such  gruesome  odours  of  the  coffin 
and  the  flesh  dissolving  into  earth,  we  still  hear 
that  clear,  triumphant  note  which  Cathy  sounded 
long  ago.  Their  souls  are  on  the  hill-tops 
still — hers  and  Heathclifi^'s  —  while  Linton's 
crouches  in  the  valley-lands,  away  out  of  sight 
of  the  woman  he  married,  of  the  lover  he  had 
robbed  of  his  true  mate.  Again  and  again,  in 
these  last  scenes,  there  is  that  weird  insistence  of 
the  spiritual,  that  plain,  unswerving  treatment  of 
the  flesh  which  is  our  prison-house.  Heathclifl?" 
— HeathclifF  the  morose,  the  cruel,  the  Ishmael 
among  his  kind — confesses  to  his  faith  in  ghosts. 

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charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

So  does  every  man  who  has  walked  lonely  on  the 
lonely  heath,  who  has  felt  the  fret  of  spirit 
underlying  the  palpable,  cold  bluster  of  the 
storm.  HeathclifF  has  faith  in  ghosts  ;  he  has 
faith  that  spirits  stalk  this  cruder  earth  ;  above 
all,  he  has  faith  that  souls  can  marry,  though 
bodies  have  been  long  kept  asunder.  He  dies, 
and  is  laid  to  rest,  with  the  gorse  and  the 
waving  bracken  and  the  tough,  sweet-scented 
hay  above  him,  beside  the  body  of  his  mate. 
And  so  this  book  of  gloom  and  tragedy  ends 
happily ;  it  ends,  as  the  world  of  heath  revolves 
beneath  the  stars,  inevitably ;  it  ends  with  a 
sense  of  the  world's  injustice,  and  the  hope  of 
recompense ;  and  our  hearts  go  out  in  yearning 
for  the  happiness  of  HeathclifF  the  misunder- 
stood, and  of  Cathy,  who  is  the  daintiest  heroine 
of  fiction  or  of  fact. 

A  lesser  artist  would  have  stayed  here,  content 
with  her  own  triumph.  But  Emily  Bronte  goes 
farther.  She  has  finished  her  book  ;  and,  yet, 
by  quiet  and  quieter  movements  of  her  music 
she  leads  us  into  that  atmosphere  of  peace  in 
which  she  knows  her  favourites  —  HeathclifF 
and  Cathy — must  rest.  Again  we  are  compelled 
to  reverence,  not  the  conception  alone,  not  the 
development  alone,  of  Wuthering  Heights^  but 
the  sure  courage  that  will  not  stoop  to  end 
where  recognized  laws  say  "  end  " — which  goes 
forward   to   the   true,    inevitable   finish.     Lower 

276 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

and  lower  sounds  the  music  ;  gentler  and  gentler 
grows  the  voice  of  that  wild  tempest  which  has 
wrecked  the  peace  of  Haworth  Moor  ;  till,  at 
the  last,  we  have  a  passage  that  is  but  a  whisper 
of  the  summer  breeze  among  the  bells  of  heath. 

*•  I  lingered " 

So  the  book  ends,  and  there's  never  a  word 
too  much,  never  a  word  too  little,  in  the  whole 
of  it. 

Emily  Bronte  !  What  is  there  more  to  say 
of  her  ?  The  bravest  and  the  sweetest  soul  that 
ever  saw  the  truth  and  wrote  it  down.  She  is 
neither  man  nor  woman  ;  a  woman  could  never 
have  conceived  the  book,  a  man  could  never 
have  wrought  such  subtle  lines  of  tenderness, 
and  truth,  and  purity,  as  she  has  done.  Like 
HeathclifF  himself,  she  is  above  and  beyond  us  ; 
she  is  a  creature  of  the  moors,  a  foster-daughter, 
as  it  were,  of  Nature  ;  and  hers  are  the  secrets 
that  running  waters  murmur  as  they  wash  their 
peaty  banks — the  secrets  that  the  lapwing  shares 
— the  secrets  of  things  old  and  unalterable, 
hidden  deep  beneath  the  outer  fret  and  struggle 
of  what  we  call  the  world  of  progress. 

She  must,  we  are  sure,  have  kept  always  a 
warm  heart  for  her  brother  Branwell.  She  was 
not  one  to  blame  lightly,  for  she  had  watched 
the  hill-top  thorn  grow  crooked  under  stress  of 
western  gales,  and  she  understood,  as  {qw  can 
understand,  the  great  primeval  forces  that  shape 

277 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

both  trees  and  men  into  the  final  mould.  Talent 
this  unhappy  lad  possessed  ;  it  may  be  genius  ; 
but  he  was  cursed  by  waywardness,  and  drifted, 
like  one  lacking  oars  and  rudder,  across  the 
waters  of  his  days — drifted,  and  left  a  ripple 
here  and  there  to  mark  his  going,  and  vanished 
into  silence.  Yet  he,  too,  has  his  place  as  a 
foundation-stone  of  all  his  sister's  work.  It  was 
Emily's  part  to  be  steadfast,  to  suffer  and  be 
strong  ;  it  was  Branwell's  to  riot  and  be  weak ; 
yet  had  there  been  no  Branwell  Bronte,  to  give 
a  human  meaning  to  the  wild  traditions,  the 
wilder  stories,  on  which  his  sister  fed,  there  had 
been  no  Wuthering  Heights.  Branwell  is  dead, 
and  the  time  to  judge  his  faults  is  past  ;  unhappy, 
sinning,  seeking  he  knew  not  what  by  tangled 
and  by  miry  paths,  his  memory  has  still  for  us 
some  magic,  some  touch  of  spoiled  romance. 
Nor  was  his  life  in  vain  ;  for  out  of  his  very 
sins  and  follies  his  sister  made  more  threads  than 
one,  from  which  to  weave  the  finished  piece  called 
fVuthering  Heights. 

And  now  to  finish.  To  say  in  a  word  what 
defies  the  intrusion  of  any  spoken  word.  To 
talk  of  that  '*  Spirit  of  the  Moors  "  which  is 
strong  as  rock,  yet  airy  as  a  dream.  It  is  a  little 
corner  of  the  world,  this  heath  that  lies  between 
Wycoller  and  Oxenhope,  between  Haworth  and 
old  Hebden  Brigg  ;  yet  somehow  it  is  the  touch- 
stone   of    all    romance,    and    spaciousness,    and 

278 


The  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

glamour.  Never  a  swart  farm-bigging,  shoulder- 
ing the  lonely  hill-top,  but  has  its  story  ;  never 
a  wrinkled  slope  of  pasture  but  knows  a  Saga- 
tale,  of  hunters  who  hunted  the  forbidden  hare, 
of  keepers  who  came  to  fight,  of  battles  that 
were  fierce,  and  fair,  and  truculent  ;  never  a 
sheltered  dene  but  smiles  at  memories  of  lad  and 
lass,  and  the  ways  and  songs  of  mating  times 
long-dead.  Out  yonder  is  Wycoller  Dene, 
whither  the  wooers  used  to  walk,  once  upon  a 
day,  from  distant  Oxenhope,  for  the  Dene  was 
full  of  bonnie  maids  as  a  winter  thorn  is  full 
of  haws ;  and  in  Wycoller  we  have  as  much 
of  legend  as  would  fill  a  country-side  in  any  land 
less  favoured  than  our  Craven.  The  Cunliffes 
who  lived,  and  feasted,  and  were  merry  in  that 
dismantled  hall — the  CunlifFe  who  lay  a-dying, 
and  ordered  his  favourite  pair  of  fighting-cocks 
to  be  brought  to  the  bed-foot,  and  died  cheering 
on  the  winning  bird — that  other  far-off"  Cunliffe 
who  rides  on  the  West  wind  of  stormy  nights, 
rides,  a  ghost  on  a  ghostly  horse,  all  down  the 
Dene,  and  between  the  guardian  hollies  of  the 
doorway,  and  up  the  stone  steps  into  the  bed- 
room of  the  wife  he  loved  and  wronged  and 
killed  three  centuries  ago  or  so.  These  things 
are  from  of  old,  and  from  of  old  the  wind  brings 
back  to  us,  as  we  stand  beside  Wycoller's  stream, 
the  fragrance  and  the  strength  of  happier  days. 
The  violets  blew  softer  then,  the  primroses  looked 

279 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

outward  from  their  nooks  with  a  deeper  and 
more  wistful  look  in  their  great  eyes  ;  the  blood 
ran  redder  in  men's  veins,  for  love  or  hate,  and 
women  were  as  full  of  panting  life  as  thorn-set 
roses  are  when  the  sun  is  in  their  hearts.  For- 
gotten now,  as  a  dead  man  out  of  mind,  is  old 
Wycoller  Dene  ;  so  much  the  better,  for  we  have 
time — as  love  has  time  among  the  ruins — to  sit 
and  dream,  and  let  that  old-time  madness  of  the 
blood  rise  once  again  and  take  us  captive.  The 
crowded  ways  of  men — the  street's  confusion, 
the  statesman's  harvest  of  clapping  hands,  the 
hard-won  ease  of  houses  bigger  than  our  needs 
— all  these  are  blown  away  like  smoke  by  the 
winds  of  Wycoller,  and  our  eyes  are  opened, 
and  we  know.  Winter,  or  pride  of  summer,  all 
is  one.  There  is  never  a  day  so  stark,  so  sleety, 
or  so  dread,  in  Wycoller  Dene,  but  has  its 
steady  sunshine — the  sunshine  of  Romance,  who 
is  man's  best  friend  on  earth. 

Yet  we  can  leave  Wycoller,  and  go  east  across 
the  pathless  moor,  and  yet  have  witchery  with 
us  like  a  constant  friend.  Here  the  moor-fowl 
nested  yester-year,  and  there  the  bog  has  tales  of 
death  to  tell,  if  it  could  but  open  its  dumb, 
greedy  mouth ;  up  yonder,  where  the  heather 
hugs  the  sky,  there  was  treasure  hid  when  Prince 
Charlie  came  marching  west  of  Pendle  Hill,  and 
when  the  Stanbury  folk  were  doubtful  lest  he 
and    his    Hielandmen    should    come    nearer   still. 

?8o 


the  Spirit  of  the  Moors 

Yonder  again,  where  the  sunset  flames,  and  pales, 
and  flames  again,  there  is  the  dreary  tavern 
whence  a  man  went  outward  to  his  death,  the 
murderers  stealing  shadow-like  behind  him. 
Here  the  old  Squire  fought  with  his  own  keepers, 
and  worsted  them' for  sport  ;  down  in  the  hollow 
there,  where  oak-fern  trembles  in  the  breeze, 
there  was  a  great  and  tender  passion  brought  to 
ripeness ;  in  yonder  strip  of  intake,  hard  won 
from  the  heath,  a  man  worked  lonely,  worked 
eagerly,  worked  till  he  dropped  in  his  own  paces, 
faithful  to  the  labour  he  had  set  himself.  See 
the  deep  cleft  there,  hidden  by  its  beard  of  ling 
and  bilberry  ;  go  back  a  space  of  fifty  years  or 
so,  and  count  the  poachers  as  they  come — ten, 
twenty,  thirty — grim-visaged  men  and  dour,  who 
march  together,  their  will  the  wind's  will,  to 
forage  where  they  list.  The  Squire  has  keepers 
— true,  but  over-few  to  match  these  stalwart 
enemies  of  written  law.  The  Squire,  the  Parson, 
and  the  Lawyer  may  drink  their  wine  below  there 
in  the  sheltered  valley-lands  ;  but  the  poachers 
are  the  magistrates  on  Haworth  Moor,  and  the 
unwritten  law  they  follow  says  that  all  which  flies, 
or  swims,  or  runs  upon  four  legs,  is  any  man's 
to  take. 

Watch  them  go  up  and  up,  their  dogs  beside 
them.  Watch  the  last  flicker  of  the  dying  moon 
light  up  their  swarthy  faces.  Then  let  the  still- 
ness fall,  the  starshine  and  the  silence,  broken  only 

281 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

by  the  bark  of  farmers'  dogs,  the  fretful  protest 
of  the  grouse.  Sit  down  awhile  upon  a  clump 
of  ling — the  season  of  the  year  is  dry  enough — 
and  let  the  past  and  present  mingle,  with  the  reek 
of  hay  and  mistal-sweets  to  help  the  reverie. 

About  you,  where  you  sit,  is  Haworth  Moor, 
ripe-rich  in  story  before  the  Brontes  knew  it. 
About  you  are  the  old,  unconquerable  tales,  the 
old,  unconquerable  roughness  of  the  heath  ;  and 
truth,  like  a  wistful,  homeless  maid,  sits  hand- 
in-hand  with  you.  Yet  about  you,  as  you  sit, 
there  is  the  nearer  presence  of  the  Brontes. 
Visions  come  and  go  upon  the  smooth  night-wind 
— of  Emily  striving  to  endure,  and  to  perfect  her 
masterpiece — of  the  old  father,  querulous  amid 
the  genius  he  has  begotten — of  Branwell,  escaping 
from  the  tavern  window  with  a  skin  too  full  of 
wine  and  foolishness. 

It  is  enough.  Let  the  dreams  die  down,  and 
hearken  to  the  lowing  of  the  kine,  and  sup  the 
satisfying  fragrance  of  the  mistals  and  the  heath. 
This  is  Haworth  Moor,  and  until  time  is  not, 
and  the  world  is  crumpled  into  primeval  space, 
the  moor-born  heart  will  neither  waver  nor 
forget. 

Listen  again,  now  that  the  peevish  wind  gets 
up  to  scatter  peace.  What  is  the  cry  that  comes 
across  the  bracken  and  the  ling }  It  is  the  cry 
of  Cathy,  beating  with  frail  hands  against  the 
window-bars.     "  I  want  to  come  in.     I'm  eome 

?82 


T'he  Spirit  of  the  Moors 
home.     I  lost  my  way  on    the   moor.     Let  me 


come  m 


Louder  the  wind  grows,  and  louder  still.  It 
is  HeathclifFs  voice.  He  is  lying  prone  in  the 
little  chamber,  sobbing  his  heart  out,  and  crying 
on  the  ghost  that  once  was  flesh  and  blood. 

Again  the  wind  dies  down.  And  from  a 
neighbouring  mistal  comes  the  honey-hearted 
scent  of  kine. 


3«3 


THE    BRONTES    AS    ARTISTS    AND 
AS    PROPHETS 

By  J.  KEIGHLEY  SNOWDEN 

An  Address  delivered  to  the  Bronte  Society,  at 
Sheffield,  January   i8,    1908 


THE    BRONTES   AS   ARTISTS   AND   AS 
PROPHETS 

The  reluctance  that  has  drawn  from  your  extreme 
courtesy  a  third  invitation  to  address  the  Bronte 
Society  is  part  of  what  one  feels  in  being  called 
upon  to  deal,  in  any  critical  way,  with  young 
and  splendid  writers  who  were  dear  women. 
Were  ?  Isn't  it  better  to  say,  are  ?  For  me, 
Emily  and  Charlotte  Bronte  are  not  dead,  but 
alive.  It  is  as  if  they  might  hear  us.  ...  I  do 
not  attribute  this  daunting  sense  of  them  to 
imagination.  It  is  real — an  effect  of  their  work's 
vitality.  This  is  their  triumph.  The  sensitive 
passionate  souls  of  the  sisters  passed  into  what 
they  wrote,  and  still  confront  us,  defiant,  delicate; 
it  is  almost  reasonable  to  say,  conscious.  Well, 
one  must  either  speak  the  truth  about  their 
writings  as  one  sees  it,  or  be  silent  ;  and,  now 
that  their  fame  is  established,  now  that  nothing 
matters,  I  would  rather  have  kept  silence,  rever- 
ently. 

However,    it    has    occurred   to    me    that    the 
Bronte  Society  may  be  wondering  if  its  usefulness 

287 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Me?noria/ 

is  not  near  an  end  for  the  same  reason.  The 
Society's  main  purpose  in  the  beginning  was  to 
establish  their  fame  more  surely.  Its  main  pur- 
pose now  is  of  course  educational.  Is  an  interest 
in  the  Brontes  adequate  for  any  society  as  an 
educational  purpose  ^  Perhaps  not.  But  one 
may  state  the  causes  of  its  intensity  and  endur- 
ance, and  try  to  see,  clearly,  what  the  fiery  spirit 
of  their  work  should  mean  to  the  world.  Test 
it  in  all  ways  first.  They  sit  here  listening,  with 
sincere,  pathetic  eyes.  But  those  eyes  have  never 
quailed  ;  and,  after  all,  the  pure  gold  of  any 
literature  is  not  to  be  had  and  weighed  but  after 
a  fierce  assay.     They  know  this,  fearlessly. 

What,  then,  has  criticism  to  say  of  the  work 
they  did  so  young,  with  such  sincerity  .?  Hard 
things.  I  suppose  there  are  not  four  other 
classical  novels  in  the  world  that  have  been 
found  unsatisfactory  from  so  many  points  of  view 
as  Jane  Eyre^  Shirley^  Villette^  and  Wuihering 
Heights.  The  critic  who  holds  that  any  fair 
and  sane  estimate  of  life  is  humorously 
balanced  may  reject  them  all  but  Villette^  and 
say  of  even  this  that  it  lacks  warmth  or  that 
the  balance  is  due  to  a  sense  of  justice  more 
than  to  humour.  The  others  fret  him  with 
passionate  intention,  and  with  certain  frank 
narrownesses.  The  realist — by  whom  I  under- 
stand the  critic  insisting  that,  whatever  stress 
there    be    of  imagination  and  feeling    people    in 

288 


HAW  .....  11     ;  l.i.M     Jill,    A.wwl^    l-.lJl.K 


HAWORIH   CHURCH  IX   CHARLOTTE   BRONTK's  TIME. 

To  face  p.  288. 


'The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

novels   should    act    and    speak    as    people    would 
in  life — the  realist  sides  with  the  humorist  ;  and 
for  him  Villette^  though  true,  is  not  a  great  book 
as  modern  novels  go.     Its  realism  seems  to  have 
quenched    something.      Wuthering    Heights    con- 
forms  to  the    letter    of   his    law,  but    is   greatly 
false  to  the  spirit.     In    Shirley    the   heroine    and 
Caroline  Helstone  often  talk  like  writing  stylists, 
and  so  does   Rose   Yorke,   rebuking   her   mother 
at  twelve  years  of  age.     Jane  Eyre  argues  with 
a   melodramatic   Rochester   in  the  same  precieuse 
diction,   for  which  there  is  only  this  to  be  said, 
that  it  fits  with  ;^her  deportment.     We  are  pre- 
pared  for    it    by    a    school-girl    conversation    in 
which    Miss    Helen   Burns,   who    is  thirteen,  re- 
marks with  great    precociousness    and    elegance  : 
"  I  have  been  wondering  how  a  man  who  wished 
to  do  right  could  act  so  unjustly  as  Charles  the 
First  sometimes  did  ;  and  I  thought  what  a   pity 
it  was  that,  with  his  integrity  and  conscientious- 
ness,  he   could   see  no  further  than  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  Crown."     At  thirteen,  Helen  Burns 
laments  her^ "  wretchedly  defective  nature,"  and, 
in  a  passage  of  pulpit  eloquence  that  any  clergy- 
man   might   envy,    tells    how    "  the  pale    human 
soul"     shall     "brighten     to    the     seraph."     In 
conception  and  execution  alike,  the  story  is  naive. 
For  the    critic   who  demands  what  is   nowadavs 
called  a  yarn,  Jane  Eyre.,  however,  puts  into  the 
shade  all  else  that  either  sister  wrote  ;  and  he, 

289  T 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

for  his  part,  cannot  imagine  that  Charlotte — 
who  produced  it  for  the  market — returned  to 
sober  studies  of  her  own  free  will  :  she  must  have 
listened  fatally  to  George  Henry  Lewes.  Caring 
less  for  humour  and  realism  in  a  novel  than  for 
the  romantic,  this  critic  finds  that  Charlotte's 
powers  declined  ;  and  that  Emily's  never  attained 
to  that  mellowness  of  smooth  performance  which 
is  agreeable  to  those  who  love  a  story  for  its 
own  sake. 

Nor  may  we  dismiss  the  critics  as  mutually 
destructive.  They  will  not  presently,  like  the 
Kilkenny  cats,  have  done.  Each  tells  a  part 
of  the  adverse  truth,  and  the  novels  have  to 
face  the  sum  of  these  parts,  not  a  difference  or 
a  quotient.  From  any  technical  point  of  view, 
however  large,  faults  enough  may  be  seen  in 
each  of  the  Bronte  books  to  make  material  for 
an  instructive  essay.  A  volume  of  such  essays 
might  be  terrible. 

There  is,  however,  another  sort  of  critic, 
whose  judgments  are  not  technical.  There  is 
the  publisher's  reader.  He  tries  to  estimate 
selling  value  in  the  manuscripts  he  handles. 
Well,  you  know  the  history  of  Wuthering 
Heights^  The  'Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hally  and  The 
Trofessor.  It  is  nothing  out  of  the  way. 
And,  times  having  changed,  and  books  with 
them,  it  is  interesting  to  ask  oneself  if  either 
of   the    four   important    books  we    are  consider- 

290 


The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

ing  would    be  at    once   accepted    now,  as  a  first 
novel  ? 

To  myself,  as  a  working  writer,  the  acceptance 
of  Charlotte's  books  at  all,  as  they  standi  is 
strangely  hard  to  imagine.  I  will  tell  you  why 
in  a  moment.  Certainly,  in  these  days  of  an 
overcrowded  market,  the  publisher  who  should 
risk  his  money  on  even  an  unknown  Jane  Eyre 
would  feel  that  he  was  indulging  a  rashness. 
Jane  Eyre  has  unmistakably  what  is  known  as 
selling  value  ;  once  fairly  under  way,  it  is  a 
great  yarn  ;  but  it  starts  too  slowly,  and  is  too 
much  more  than  a  yarn,  to  please  the  sort  of 
publisher  who  would  like  it  most  on  that 
account ;  is  at  once  too  ingenuous  and  too 
stilted  for  a  publisher  willing  to  admit 
quality.  In  any  case  he  would  want  it  to 
begin  at  the  twelfth  chapter.  You  must  plunge 
in  medias  res.  Shirley  moves  so  quietly  and  so 
naturally,  a  panorama  of  real  life  without  con- 
structive principle  or  visible  plot,  that  I  suppose 
no  professional  reader  could  nowadays  feel 
anything  but  despair  of  its  appeal — a  despair 
intensified,  not  relieved,  by  the  searching  truth 
of  its  psychology  and  the  wealth  of  its  exquisite 
literary  beauties.  These  are  not  "  selling 
qualities,"  and  the  publication  of  Shirley  as  a  first 
book  would  be  a  quixotism.  As  for  Villette — im- 
possible !  It  is  a  novel  for  bilingual  readers, 
and  he  would  find  it  tame.     Moreover,  one  hunts 

291 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

on  a  false  scent  tor  a  hero,  and  in  the  end  is 
disappointed — faults  not  now  excused.  Emily 
Bronte's  masterpiece  might,  on  the  other  hand — 
I  think  it  would — have  an  easier  birth  and 
kinder  welcome  now  than  killed  her  young 
ambition.  Its  energy  is  modern  and  tremendous. 
Its  direct  unhalting  march  is  modern.  But  the 
temperamental  strangeness  of  its  atmosphere  and 
people  looks  more  morbid  than  it  can  have 
looked  in  those  days  of  romanticism  ;  and  there 
is  a  great  deal  of  dialect.  In  all  likelihood, 
tVutheriti^  Heights  would  have  to  go  the  round. 
What  does  it  signify .''  The  immediate  sale- 
ability  of  a  book  was  never  a  measure  of  its 
true  value  ;  never  can  be  :  it  is  only  a  measure 
of  culture  and  alertness  in  the  reading  public. 
Worse  novels  are  published  every  year  by 
thousands,  not  all  of  them  at  the  author's  cost 
or  risk.  Novels  illiterate  and  vicious  pass  the 
selling  standard ;  banal  and  vulgar  novels  are 
sold  by  the  hundred  thousand  copies.  But  is 
there  nothing,  then,  in  the  judgment  of  a 
publisher's  reader  ?  No  author  who  is  wise 
will  say  so.  It  does  uphold  against  the  new- 
comer some  artistic  canons  of  the  time,  if  only 
because  they  happen  to  be  canons  of  success. 
They  have  been  arrived  at  in  a  keen  competition 
of  craftsmen.  The  art  of  making  novels  in 
all  kinds  has  been  so  developed  by  this  com- 
petition   since    the    Brontes   wrote,    that   one   is 

292 


^he  Brontt's  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

obliged  to  admit  the  existence,  in  many  classics, 
of  defects  from  which  the  most  trivial  piece 
of  work  in  the  same  kind  is  nowadays  exempt. 
They  endure,  it  seems,  by  virtue  of  qualities 
that  override  craftsmanship. 

Such  classics  are  like  the  works  of  certain 
old  masters  of  painting,  clumsy  in  design,  or 
strange  in  colour,  or  faulty  in  drawing,  but 
big  with  some  human  worthiness  to  which  design, 
colour,  and  drawing  are  secondary.  In  admiring 
them  well,  what  is  our  mental  attitude  ?  We 
do  not  blink  their  weaknesses  :  that  would  be 
to  pay  false  worship  and  to  harm  ourselves  and 
art  :  for  we  discern  their  strength  truly  when 
most  critical.  Whoever  should  say  that  Tintoret 
painted  trees  well  would  make  us  doubt  that 
he  had  any  true  sense  of  the  master's  imagination 
and  depth  of  soul.  Trees  are  painted  better 
by  English  art  students.  If  Tintoret  were 
painting  nowadays  with  such  unequal  and  rude 
execution,  he  would  never  become  famous  : 
probably  Tintoret  would  starve,  or  take  to 
screeving.  W^hat  of  that }  If  we  ever  have 
a  re-incarnation  of  Tintoret  in  fact,  his  genius 
will  of  course  assimilate  the  art  of  the  new 
age,  and  produce  trees  nearly  as  good  as  any- 
body's. 

But,  with  many  fine  exceptions,  there  is 
nowadays  an  immense  manufacture  of  worthless 
novels ;    and,   I   am   concerned   at   least   as  much 

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charlotte  Bronte :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

for  the  art  of  fiction  as  for  a  just  appreciation 
of  the  Brontes,  when  I  attempt  to  judge  their 
work  by  the  best  canons  of  the  time.  Consider 
frankly  its  defects  of  craftsmanship,  and  so 
arrive  at  a  firm  and  illuminating  estimate  of 
its  actual  merits.  It  will  be  found,  I  think, 
that  these  are  poetic  and  ethical  rather  than 
artistic. 

Charlotte  Bronte's  estimate  of  Jane  Austen 
helps  us  to  our  estimate  of  herself.  Mr.  Lewes 
has  commended  to  her  that  placid  worker  as 
*'  One  of  the  greatest  artists  .  .  .  with  the  nicest 
sense  of  means  to  an  end,  that  ever  lived."  She 
allows  the  nice  sense  of  means  to  an  end  ;  but 
'•  Can  there  be  a  great  artist  without  poetry  ?  " 
she  demands — and  Mr.  Lewes  has  no  rejoinder. 
He  should  have  written,  she  would  say,  "  One 
of  the  greatest  craftsmen."  Her  conception  of 
a  great  artist  is  right  ;  and  if  her  own  use  of 
means  to  an  end  be  wanting  in  skill,  or  if  her 
purpose  be  something  other  than  artistic,  the 
poetry  is  always  there.  Emily's  use  of  means 
to  an  end  is  masterly,  and  in  its  rude  compelling 
fashion  unsurpassed.  Moreover,  Emily's  purpose 
is  artistic,  not  at  all  didactic  or  controversial. 
If  Mr.  Lewes  had  had  the  tact  and  insight  to 
write  to  the  other  sister  a  letter  of  respectful 
homage  on  her  strength  of  handling,  we  should 
have  thought  more  highly  of  his  critical  acumen, 
though  he  had  said  with  Charlotte  that  Wuthering 

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The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

Heights  was  sinister,  dark  and  goblin-like.  In 
Emily,  at  least,  he  might  have  recognized  a 
great  artist,  a  craftsman  who  was  also  a  poet, 
a  savage  Michael  Angelo  of  letters.  But  she 
wrought  too  much  in  the  realm  of  imagination 
to  be  appraised  by  Mr.  Lewes. 

Let  that  pass.  Charlotte's  artistry  is  now  in 
question  as  it  appears  to  novelists  and  critics  of 
this  generation.  She  wrote  two  kinds  of  stories — 
what  is  known  as  the  romantic  "  yarn,"  and 
the  story  of  real  life.  Her  preference  was  for 
the  latter.  Her  first  approach  to  a  publisher 
was  made  with  an  example  of  it,  The  Professor^ 
and  she  returned  to  it.  She  is  best  known  for 
a  single  example  of  the  romantic  yarn.  When 
The  Trofessor  was  rejected  and  she  began  Jane 
Eyre,  it^was  because,  as  she  says  a  little  con- 
temptuously, the  publishers  wanted  "  something 
more  imaginative  and  poetical — something  more 
consonant  with  a  highly  wrought  fancy,  with 
a  taste  for  pathos."  The  story  notion  of  a  mad 
wife  or  relative  confined  in  a  secret  chamber 
was  in  vogue  :  it  may  be  found  in  one  of  the 
clever  and  forgotten  novels  of  Miss  Jewsbury, 
the  friend  of  Mrs.  Carlyle.  Charlotte  made 
the  very  most  of  it — with  a  depth  and  pure 
intensity  of  feeling  that  no  writer  of  the  time 
could  match.  It  was  a  story  notion  strictly  :  in 
actual  life,  no  such  secret  could  be  kept  from 
the    household,    and    nobody    would    suppose    it 

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Charlotte  Bropti' :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

could.     This  is  what  Leslie  Stephen  had  in  mind 
when  he   called   Jane  Eyre  a  baseless  nightmare. 
Charlotte  herself  must  have  been  very  well  aware 
of  the  flaw  when  she  wondered  "  if  the  analyses 
of  other  fictions  read  as  absurdly  as  that  of  Jane 
Eyre  always  does "  ;  and,  in  Villette^  the  parallel 
episode  of  the  pseudo-ghost    is   handled  with    a 
strict  regard  for  what  is  possible.     But  see  how 
much  more  finely  the  nightmare  is  invested  with 
proper    circumstance    and    human    meaning    than 
that   of  The    Castle   of  Otranto  or   Frankenstein. 
What  modern  art  has  to  say  against  this  fantastic 
order  of  romance  is  not  that  it  was  naive — art 
sometimes   is — but    that   in   spirit   and   execution 
alike  it  was  bound  to  be  in  a  measure  insincere. 
Charlotte    Bronte    came    nearest    of  any    one    to 
being  wholly  serious  with  it  ;    she  made  a  step 
backward  from  Scott,  however,  and   the  wonder 
is  that  she  is  so  little  blamed  for  doing  so.     The 
true  apostolical  succession  in  romantic  fiction  is 
from    Scott    to    Stevenson    and    Weyman    and 
Hewlett.     The  true  practice  of  the  art  is  based 
upon  a  romantic  way  of  seeing  real  events.     It 
selects,    distorting    nothing,   eschewing   improba- 
bilities.    It  selects  romantic  deeds  and  personages, 
paints  romantic  scenes  with  poetry  and  passion, 
but   has  a   care  that  every  scene  and    stroke   of 
the  detail  shall  be  convincing.     It  is  a  practice 
much  more  difficult — more  masculine. 

How  is  the  art  of  Jane  Eyre  at  outs  with  it  ? 
296 


^The  Bront'es  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

I  have  mentioned  Helen  Burns's  impossible  pre- 
cocity.    I   do  not  think  it  open  to  dispute  that 
some    of    the    conversations    between    Jane    and 
Rochester  are  still  more  ludicrous.     They   have 
a  schoolgirl  air  of  mingled  propriety  and  awful- 
ness  that  is  nowhere  to  be  matched  in  any  book 
accepted  as  a  classic.    Mr.  de  Selincourt  has  already 
said    this.      But    more  ;    the    propriety    is    often 
priggish  on  Jane's  part,  and  passion  in  the   most 
tempestuous  moments  speaks  in  polished  phrases. 
Jane    Eyre    is    a    very    "young"    book.      That 
this  fact   does   not   explain   all  its  imperfections, 
and  that  these  were  mainly  due  to  Miss  Bronte's 
following  bad    models    with    her    critical    faculty 
asleep  or  silenced,  appears  to  me  plain  from  the 
truth    and    fine   womanliness   of   Shirley^   which 
came  but  two  years  later.     Plain,  too,  from  The 
Professor^  which   is  not  so  girlish  either,  though 
it  came  first.     And  I  am  very  sure  that  Charlotte 
Bronte  never  desired  to  pin  her  reputation  upon 
the    only    novel    that   commends   itself    to    Mr, 
Chesterton.     She   indeed  regarded    Jane  Eyre  as 
an  attack  upon  conventionality  ;  and  the  relent- 
less   study    of    bigotry    in    St.  John  Rivers,   the 
strong  plea  that  love  is  greater  than  any  human 
doctrines,  and  the  rehabilitation  of  the  governess, 
must  have  made  her   glad,  to   the  last,  that  she 
had  written  it.      But  she  knew  its  faults  as  well 
as    any  one,   I    think.     In    Villette  there    are    no 
seventeenth-century     bookish     conversations.      In 

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charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

either  Villette  or  Shirley  there  is  not  an  improba- 
bility that  matters. 

Those  who  believe  that  Charlotte  Bronte's 
greatest  gift  was  the  power  to  write  a  fascinat- 
ing story  hold  that,  in  doing  these  later  books, 
she  had  missed  her  way.  Well,  she  chose  with 
her  eyes  open.  I  think  she  was  true  to  her 
character  in  the  choice,  if  not  to  a  purely  artistic 
ideal  ;  and  I  doubt  very  much  if  a  resolve  to 
spin  yarns  for  their  own  sake,  even  in  a  modern 
realistic  manner,  could  have  given  us  the 
spontaneous  and  splendid  self-realization  of 
Shirley^  a  book  to  which  Mr.  Meredith  and 
the  whole  feminist  movement  owe  much  of  their 
inspiration.  But,  says  Mr.  Chesterton,  Jane 
Eyre  is  the  unique  novel  in  English  literature  of 
the  nineteenth  century  "  where  the  dangerous 
life  of  a  good  person  was  thoroughly  expressed." 
I  do  not  know  that  *'  thoroughly  "  is  the  best 
word;  "exorbitantly"  seems  to  me  a  better 
one  ;  but  I  do  suppose  that  Mr.  Chesterton 
puts  a  finger  there  upon  the  secret  of  the  book's 
popularity  and  very  life.  The  heroine  is  good 
beyond  all  expectation.  She  is  so  good,  that, 
if  Rochester  had  not  been  vain  egregiously,  as 
well  as  an  unlicked  cub  grown  rather  monstrous — 
or  if  he  had  even  been  convincingly  presented  from 
the  first,  his  secret  told  us — the  popular  verdict 
to-day  must  have  been  that  she  is  righteous 
overmuch.     His  look    of   undesirability  balances 

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^The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

Jane's  priggishness  and  school  propriety  ;  other- 
wise the  terrible  plight  of  the  man,  chained  to 
a  vampire,  and  loving  Jane  at  last  with  his 
whole  despairing  nature,  would  have  made  even 
the  prudes  aware  that  what  is  called  a  woman's 
"  goodness  "  may  in  certain  crises  be  selfish  and 
petty.  One  is  tempted  to  quote  the  preface  : 
*'  Conventionality  is  not  morality  ;  self-righteous- 
ness is  not  religion."  But,  for  the  sake  of  the 
yarn,  Jane  acts  conventionally  in  the  crisis.  She 
runs  away,  leaving  Rochester  to  his  intolerable 
fate  ;  and  there  is  even  a  suggestion  that  his 
blindness,  the  consequence  of  an  act  of  splendid 
heroism,  was  meant  by  Providence  to  "  chasten  " 
him  for  infidelity  to  the  vampire.  Was  it  so 
meant  by  Charlotte  Bronte,  the  Providence  who 
arranged  it  ?  Absurd  !  It  is  part  of  the  yarn. 
If,  as  she  held,  pure  love  is  greater  than 
human  doctrines,  it  is  greater,  too,  than  human 
laws  ;  and  Jane  Eyre's  goodness  would  have 
been  far  nobler,  if  less  popular,  had  she  done 
what  love  in  its  highest  expression  must  always 
make  us  do — forget  ourselves  for  another. 
Why  is  Rivers  introduced,  but  to  bring  this 
knowledge  home  to  us.^  Even  in  a  missionary 
enterprise  she  cannot  forget  herself  for  him  ; 
and,  called  by  a  supernatural  voice,  she  goes 
back  to  her  lover.  But  the  conventions  are  still 
respected,  the  vampire  wife  having  by  that 
time  perished.      It  is  a  vastly   ingenious  plot   on 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :   a   Centenary  Memorial 

melodramatic  lines  ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  it  is 
wrought  out  with  extraordinary  feeling  and 
imagination.  These  give  to  the  story  a  certain 
greatness.  But  these,  by  themselves,  are  never 
passports  to  popularity.  In  the  case  of  Jane 
Eyre,  they  do  not  seem  to  have  been  passports 
even  to  realism  ;  and  my  own  judgment  of  this 
story  is  that  its  naivetes  and  unnatural  notes 
might  have  ultimately  killed  it  in  spite  of  all,  if 
it  had  not  said  so  much  for  "  goodness."  The 
bold  attack  upon  a  certain  type  of  bigot,  sincere 
in  every  word  of  it,  is  only  incidental  ;  yet  it 
is  the  content  most  characteristic  of  Charlotte 
Bronte  as  a  moralist. 

Let  me  not  be  thought  contemptuous  of 
selling  value  in  a  work  of  fiction.  It  is  another 
term  for  readableness.  The  first  business  of  a 
novel,  whether  yarn  or  story  of  common  life, 
work  of  art  or  work  of  morals,  is  to  get  itself 
read.  But  there  are  various  kinds  of  attractive- 
ness. Turn  now  from  Jane  Eyre  to  Shirley 
and  Villette^  and  see  how  modern  canons  are 
applied  to  judge  the  selling  value  of  these. 

For  a  story  of  common  life  the  canons  are 
stricter  than  for  a  yarn.  Its  interest  must 
depend  wholly  upon  treatment,  and  therefore,  in 
modern  practice,  such  a  story  commonly  begins 
in  a  striking  way,  so  as  to  enlist  our  interest 
at  once  in  its  chief  character  or  characters,  and 
to   distinguish    these    from    the    rest.     They   are 

300 


The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

seen  passing  through  some  definite  phase  or 
experience.  All  the  incidents,  all  subordinate 
figures,  all  detail,  are  introduced  and  ordered 
with  a  view  to  the  definite  purpose.  They  make 
for  a  definite  ending.  It  has  been  found  possible, 
by  these  means,  to  arrest  and  keep  attention  for 
studies  of  life  that  are  true  to  the  most  normal 
experience,  and  that  point  their  own  morals. 
But  in  Charlotte  Bronte's  time  there  was 
no  such  craftsmanship  of  realism ;  and,  in 
differing  ways,  Shirley  and  Villette  fail  to  con- 
sult the  ease  and  pleasure  of  the  reader  by  such 
means.  Villette  is  autobiographical  ;  Shirley  I 
have  called  a  panorama.  We  go  to  them  first 
either  because  we  have  been  assured  that  it  is 
very  well  worth  our  while,  or  because  we  are 
honestly  studious.  They  are  caviare  to  the 
general. 

But  what  a  feast  for  the  lover  of  literature  is 
Shirley  !  Its  fresh  outlook  and  its  beauty  of 
feeling  are  priceless.  And  what  a  wise  and 
graceful  mind  informs  the  story  of  Lucy  Snowe  ! 
More  craftsmanship  might  have  made  them  better 
known,  and  especially  sixty  years  back  ;  but  now 
that  they  are  accepted  classics,  the  lack  of  it  is 
not  complained  of.  The  craftsmanship,  such  as 
it  is,  has  the  great  merit  of  being  characteristic, 
like  that  of  all  spontaneous  art.  Why  is  the  hero 
slow  to  appear,  and  slower  still  to  reveal  himself 
completely  }     Because  Charlotte   Bronte  was  not 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

a.  woman  who  loved  at  sight,  but  had  first  to  see 
her  lover  critically,  and  then  to  esteem  him. 
Why,  indeed,  do  all  her  people  grow  upon  us  in 
the  same  way  ?  As  she  avowed,  her  sense  of 
character  was  not  quite  intuitive,  not  rash  ;  and 
I  believe  her  interest  in  exact  and  full  apprecia- 
tions was  one  of  the  main  causes  why  she  wrote. 
However,  in  a  book,  the  method  of  slow  reve- 
lation has  drawbacks  unless  it  be  used  for 
some  particular  purpose  of  a  plot.  It  fogs  the 
undiscerning  reader,  suspends  and  baffles  his 
sympathies,  and  has  led  poor  critics  to  say  that 
Charlotte  Bronte's  men  were  not  well  seen  by 
herself.  Mr.  Chesterton  prefers  the  superficial 
pen  of  Jane  Austen  in  this  respect.  Mr.  de 
Selincourt,  while  sensible  that  Charlotte's  "  con- 
ception of  her  dramatis  person<e  is  nearly  always 
true,"  thinks  that  the  manner  she  chooses  to 
reveal  them  is  not  only  crudely  inartistic  but  false 
to  life.  The  manner,  I  think,  is  true  to  life. 
That  is  why  it  is  inartistic.  In  the  case  of 
Rochester,  which  Mr.  de  Selincourt  has  especially 
in  mind,  that  fantastic  look  of  the  man  is  due  to 
his  false  position,  which  is  unknown  to  the  reader. 
We  have  not,  in  English  literature,  a  novelist 
whose  grasp  of  his  dramatis  -persona  is  more 
absolute  than  Charlotte  Bronte's.  Their  inmost 
secret,  their  subtlest  mutabilities  of  mood  and 
action,  are  known  to  that  searching  gaze,  as 
well    as    their     outward   aspect   and  the   effects 

302 


The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

they  make  upon  each  other.  They  are  not, 
all  of"  them,  known  sympathetically ;  the  means 
her  scrutiny  has  used  are  often  coldly  ana- 
lytical ;  but  you  must  trust  her  insight.  The 
mischief  is  that  you  are  required  to  do  so  ;  the 
undiscerning  reader  sees  a  character  behave 
inexplicably,  or  provokingly  ;  and,  of  all  Char- 
lotte Bronte's  faults  of  craftsmanship,  this  is  the 
most  damaging.  The  early  and  decorative  fault 
of  endowing  people  with  artificial  speech  is  by 
comparison  venial.  Happily,  we  have  consented 
to  look  at  life  without  misgivings  as  she 
pictures  it. 

Why,  again,  has  Shirley  no  structure,  no  real 
story  plot  ?  Because  Charlotte  Bronte's  way,  in 
life  itself,  is  to  be  a  quiet  observer,  letting  life 
go  by  :  she  is  satisfied  passively  to  interpret 
its  hidden  passions,  to  feel  its  beauty,  and  to 
meditate  its  meanings.  Emily  of  the  masculine 
will  and  imagination  works  equally  in  her  own 
manner,  a  very  different  one.  The  truth  is,  these 
Bronte  sisters  are  so  interesting  as  women  that 
one  is  best  pleased  to  have  it  so.  The  interest 
in  their  books  is  autobiographical  chiefly  ;  and 
they  are  true  to  themselves  in  craftsmanship  and 
all  things.  It  is  the  secret  of  their  greatness. 
All  the  faults  we  can  find  help  us  to  prize  what 
remains  impeccable. 

Well,  what  do  they  mean  to  us  }  What  is 
the  Bronte  Society's  educational  stock  ^. 

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Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

There  is  all  they  had  to  say  for  women.  .  .  . 
Ill  this  connection  I  think  it  fair  to  dissociate 
Charlotte  Bronte  from  the  militant  sisterhood 
who  sometimes  claim  her  as  a  prophetess  and 
leader.  Her  attitude  to  our  sex  is  critical,  but 
passive  always.  Shirley  Keeldar  calls  herself 
"  Captain,"  and  takes  her  own  way  with  a  pretty 
air  of  mannishness,  but  she  is  never  unfeminine 
for  a  moment,  never  stormy,  or  egregious,  or 
ungraceful.  And  Shirley,  the  liveliest  type  of 
womanly  independence  in  the  books,  is  not 
Charlotte  herself,  but  "  Emily  in  happier  cir- 
cumstances." In  respect  of  sex  attitude,  Char- 
lotte's habit  is  rather  seen  in  Jane  Eyre  and 
Lucy  Snowe.  She  wrote  Shirley  in  chivalrous 
defence  of  womanhood  against  misprizing  egotis- 
tical man,  who  in  those  days,  and  in  Yorkshire, 
stood  very  much  in  need  of  her  satiric  handling  ; 
and  there  is  one  figure  at  least,  that  of  Mr. 
Sympson,  who,  being  seen  from  the  outside  only, 
and  in  a  state  of  mind  that  Americans  know  as 
"  hopping  mad,"  has  an  air  of  caricature.  But 
she  accepts  Robert  Moore  after  all.  And  she 
utterly  submits,  in  Villette^  to  the  kind-hearted 
tyrannies  of  M.  Paul  Emanuel,  which  are  even 
more  eccentric  than  Mr.  Sympson 's.  It  is  not 
for  a  notion  of  equality  in  the  sexes  that  Char- 
lotte Bronte  contends.  I  think  she  tried  to  set 
us  far  too  high.  '*  Nothing  ever  charms  me 
more,"   says   Shirley,  "  than    when    I    meet    my 

304 


VIEW    FROM    HAVVORTH    MOOR. 


FOOT-BRIDGE   NEAR   BRONTE   WATERFALL 


Tu  face  p.  304. 


The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

superior.  The  higher  above  me,  so  much  the 
better  ;  it  degrades  to  stoop  :  it  is  glorious  to 
look  up."  And  of  man  in  the  abstract,  "I 
would  scorn  to  contend  for  empire  with  him — 
I  would  scorn  it.  Shall  my  left  hand  dispute  for 
precedence  with  my  right  ?  "  No  :  we  go  to 
Charlotte  Bronte's  books  to  see  ourselves  with 
the  clear  eyes  of  a  conscientious  woman,  for 
whom  love  is  the  greatest  good  in  life  but  who 
can  only  love  where  she  esteems  highly.  Her 
glance  is  piercing,  and  for  injustice,  folly,  or 
humbug  it  is  quite  inexorable  :  she  breathes 
defiance  oftener  than  she  sparkles  fun  :  but  she 
does  us  good  like  a  medicine,  and  threatens 
nothing  harmful. 

I  do  not  say  she  is  judicial.  Charlotte  Bronte 
frankly  takes  the  side  of  her  sex.  But,  for  a 
parti  pris^  it  is  fairly  taken.  The  writing  quality 
forfeited  in  some  degree  by  championship  is 
humour,  and  that  loss  is  nearly  all  we  have  to 
regret  in  it.  Some  poverty  of  humour,  a 
strenuous  note  of  seriousness,  at  times  a  certain 
want  of  good  spirits  and  happy  tolerance,  cause 
her  realism  to  be  classed  below  that  of  the 
greatest  writers  of  fiction.  It  is  sad  to  find  no 
downright  hearty  laughs  ;  her  very  smile,  when 
it  is  not  beautiful  with  pity,  has  an  air  of  quiet 
malice  ;  she  does  not  live  so  warmly  as  to  feel 
perfectly  indulgent.  For  her  supreme  gift  is  to 
feel  keenly,  as  Emily's  is.     A  fuller    and  more 

305  u 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

diversified  contact  with  life  than  Emily's  has 
compelled  her  to  find  accommodations  ;  but 
this,  alas !  while  dulling  poetry  has  not  made 
her  quite  serenely  optimist.  She  needed  happi- 
ness :  happiness  of  a  kind  came  too  late.  To 
Emily,  whose  need  was  even  greater,  it  never 
came. 

The  cry  for  happiness,  heard  in  all  their  work 
as  an  undertone,  and  uttered  frankly  in  many 
passages  of  great  beauty,  seems  to  me  to  be  very 
specially  a  Bronte  note  ;  and  I  think  it  is  the 
tragic  contrast  between  their  capacity  for  it  and 
the  incompleteness  of  their  lives  that  has  won  for 
them  so  many  lovers.  The  cry  has  a  sharpness 
as  if  they  had  foreseen  the  end.  We  feel  an 
ache  of  tenderness  for  them,  greater  than  for 
either  Keats,  or  Shelley,  or  Chatterton.  It 
makes  critical  estimates  a  heavy  business,  to  be 
done  reluctantly.  When  I  consider  the  absence 
of  any  such  joy  of  labour  in  Villette  as  abounds 
in  Shirley^  and  remember  the  disenchantments  and 
the  griefs  endured  before  it  was  written,  and 
that  nothing  followed  it,  Charlotte  Bronte's  last 
years  appear  extremely  grey.  One  likes  to 
think  that  ^she  did  know  happiness  before 
she  died.  But  it  was  terribly  brief,  and,  how- 
ever consoling,  it  had  not  the  ecstasy  of  her 
imagination.  As  for  her  work,  its  vital  force 
had  ebbed  as  it  had  gained  sobriety,  balance,  and 
technical  excellence.     The  fiery  and  pure  spirit 

306 


The  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

seems    to    have    burned    its    frail    envelope,    as 
Emily's  had  done  seven  years  earlier. 

What  have  they  left  to  us,  these  rare  spirits, 
exquisitely  young  ?  Work  so  sincere  that 
we  are  as  near  to  them  as  lovers  can  be  ever. 
Their  very  faults — Emily's  her  aloofness; 
Charlotte's  her  bias,  and  Puritanism,  and  preach- 
ing seriousness — their  very  faults  endear  them. 
We  see  these  faults  as  the  defects  of  noble 
qualities.  They  are  women  who  have  suffered 
much  because  the  world  will  not  arrange  itself 
to  the  great  pattern  of  their  ideals  and  sharp 
desires  ;  and  doubtless  they  and  all  of  us  were 
happier  if  we  smiled  at  it.  But  is  the  world 
to  be  without  its  martyrs  and  its  prophets  I 
Theirs  is  a  divine  discontent,  by  which  we  are 
to  learn  how  the  world  may  be  made  a  habitation 
easier  to  smile  in.  They  suff^er  for  our  sakes. 
These  dear  women,  delicate  and  passionate 
idealists,  have  done  what  I  take  to  be  a  priceless 
thing  for  an  age  in  which  conventional  faiths 
were  to  crumble  fast  away.  They  put  us  in  con- 
tact with  great  Nature — a  Book  of  Revelations  of 
which  the  glory  is  imperishable  and  the  comfort- 
able promise  sure ; — and  they  have  done  this 
in  passages  of  pure  and  musical  English,  poetic 
and  searching  prose,  that  persuade  us  of  the 
truth  of  their  meaning  by  its  very  beauty.  It  is 
not  a  message  to  those  who  are  happy  and  sure 
already.     It  is  not  a  message  to  the  Philistines. 

307 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

It  is  an  auricular  sweet  message  to  the  chosen, 
in  doubt  and  in  adversity.  For  Charlotte, 
Nature  has  sunny  tears  and  a  soft  lap ;  for 
Emily,  that  mystery  of  spiritual  meaning  which 
assures  her  that  nothing  dies,  nothing  is  in- 
explicable. 

Vain  are  the  thousand  creeds 
That  move  men's  hearts  :  unutterably  vain  : 

Worthless  as  withered  weeds, 
Or  idlest  froth  amid  the  boundless  main. 

To  waken  doubt  in  one 
Holding  so  fast  by  Thine  infinity. 

So  much  poetry  is  nowhere  else,  in  English 
writers  of  fiction,  to  be  found  with  such  an 
unsparing  critical  outlook  and  such  sincerity  of 
self-expression  as  in  the  Brontes.  Remark,  that 
sincerity  and  the  critical  spirit  put  them  in 
touch  with  modern  thought  inseverably  ;  and 
then  consider,  if  you  please,  the  question  I  asked 
at  first,  and  whether  their  educational  force  is 
likely  to  be  soon  exhausted.  Their  note,  as 
Dr.  Robertson  NicoU  feels  it,  is  "fortitude." 
Well,  freedom  and  perfect  honesty  of  thought, 
scorn  of  untruth  and  of  injustice,  demand  that 
note  in  all  who  see  the  shams  and  cruelties  of 
men  and  yet  keep  faith  in  beauty,  honour,  love, 
and  a  great  design.  The  demand  will  not  abate. 
It  grows.  I  am  glad  that  no  horn-eyed  person 
has  attempted  a  synthesis  of  Charlotte   Bronte's 

308 


T'he  Brontes  as  Artists  and  as  Prophets 

intolerances  and  prepossessions,  her  scepticisms 
and  her  beliefs,  with  a  view  to  claim  her  for 
this  or  that  political  class  or  sect  of  Christian 
worshippers  in  her  time.  It  may  yet  be  done, 
doubtless.  They  are  probably  not  reconcilable, 
these  prejudices,  and  in  any  case  the  attempt 
would  be  unintelligent.  What  we  honour  and 
prize,  alike  in  her  and  in  her  stronger  sister,  is 
the  fearless,  dainty  spirit,  true  to  itself  as  well 
as  to  the  higher  hope.  Freedom's  battle  is 
bequeathed  to  ourselves. 

Lyrical  and  heroic  souls,  in  their  own  day 
they  stood  in  the  van  of  that  battle,  to  give 
succour  and  to  fight  with  equal  helpfulness. 
This  is  why  they  will  not  be  forgotten.  This 
is  the  reason  for  a  cult  of  Bronte  worshippers, 
who  keep  their  praise  alive  and  spread  their 
spirit. 

7.    KEIGHLET  SNOrVDEN. 


30P 


A    BRONTE    ITINERARY 
By  butler  wood 


A   BRONTE   ITINERARY 

Although  much  has  been  written  on  the 
topography  of  the  novels  and  other  places  con- 
nected with  the  Bronte  family,  as  far  as  I  am 
aware  no  attempt  has  hitherto  been  made  to  work 
out  an  Itinerary  which  may  be  followed  by  those 
who  wish  to  make  a  systematic  tour  of  the  dis- 
tricts concerned.  For  the  present  purpose  it  will 
not  be  necessary,  nor  is  it  desirable,  to  enter  into 
any  detailed  account  of  the  places  mentioned  ; 
particulars  of  these  must  be  looked  for  in  such 
works  as  Dr.  Stuart's  "Bronte  Country,"  1888, 
and  H.  E.  Wroot's  "  Persons  and  Places  of  the 
Bronte  Novels,"  1906.  Many  articles  on  separate 
places  have  also  appeared  from  time  to  time  in 
the  Transactions  of  the  Bronte  Society  and  in 
magazines  and  newspapers.  These,  and  others 
mentioned  in  the  Bibliographies  issued  by  the 
Society,  may  be  consulted  for  further  information. 
For  the  sake  of  convenience  the  areas  are 
arranged  into  four  divisions,  covering  all  the 
ground  with  the  exception  of  Brussels,  which 
is  ably  dealt  with  by  Mr.   M.  H.  Spielmann  in 

313 


Charlotte  Brontif :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

another    part    of   this    volume.      These    arc    as 
follows  : — 

The  Haworth  Country,  "  Shirley  "  Coun- 
try, Cowan  Bridge  and  Kirkby  Lonsdale, 
and  Hathersage. 

Haworth    Country 

If  we  draw,  say  on  the  one-inch  ordnance 
map,  a  line  cutting  through  Slcipton,  Colnc, 
Hebden  Bridge,  Halifax,  Bradford,  Keighley, 
and  thence  back  to  Skipton,  we  shall  roughly 
enclose  the  area  made  classic  ground  by  Jane 
Eyre  and  fVuthering  Heights,  and  which  will 
ever  remain  sacred  as  the  land  wherein  the 
Bronte  family  passed  the  greater  part  of  their 
lives  ;  for  within  it  lie  Thornton,  where  Char- 
lotte, Emily,  Anne,  and  Bran  well  were  born,  and 
Haworth,  where  all  except  Anne  are  buried. 

The  greater  part  consists  of  the  moorland  ridge 
which  separates  the  West-Riding  from  Lanca- 
shire, and  which  happily  has  changed  little  in 
aspect  since  the  Bronte  days.  If  the  reader  could 
stand  on  the  western  side  of  the  Nab,  a  bold 
escarpment  of  millstone  grit  which  dominates 
the  Worth  Valley  at  a  height  of  1,450  feet 
above  the  sea-level,  he  would  be  able  to  take 
in  with  one  sweep  of  the  eye  the  whole  of 
the  moorland  tract  which  surrounds  the  Bronte 
home.     Beyond  the  reaches  of  heather  stretching 

314 


'\ 


^  4/ 


'^1^1*  ^L 


<7 


A  Bronte  Itinerary 

away  to  the  west  are  Boulsworth  and  Pendle 
Hill.  On  the  north-west  the  Keighley  moors 
rise  in  brown  masses  to  the  Lancashire  border, 
while  the  suave  contours  of  Rombald's  Moor 
fill  up  the  view  on  the  north.  Southward,  the 
eye  ranges  along  those  billowy  hills  of  brown 
and  purple  which  roll  away  into  Derbyshire  and 
end  in  the  magnificent  mass  of  Kinder  Scout. 

Readers  familiar  with  Jane  Eyre  will  remember 
with  what  a  loving  hand  the  moorlands  are  de- 
scribed in  the  twenty-eighth  chapter  and  other 
portions  of  the  book,  but  Emily's  feeling  to- 
wards them,  as  revealed  in  Wuihering  Heights^  was 
nothing  less  than  a  passion.  Charlotte  says  of 
her  that  "  she  had  a  particular  love  for  them  ; 
there  is  not  a  knoll  of  heather,  not  a  branch  of 
fern,  not  a  young  bilberry  leaf,  not  a  fluttering 
lark  or  linnet,   but  reminds  me  of  her." 

Those  who  wish  to  explore  this  region  should 
take  train  to  Keighley,  which  is  on  the  Midland 
main  line — nine  miles  from  Bradford  and  six- 
teen miles  from  Leeds.  From  thence  a  branch 
line  runs  up  the  Worth  Valley  to  Haworth, 
which  is  approached  from  the  station  by  a  steep 
rise  of  half  a  mile.  At  the  top  of  the  tortuous, 
narrow  street  are  situated  the  Black  Bull  Inn 
and  the  Bronte  Museum,  and  within  a  short 
distance  the  Church  and  Vicarage.  The  inn, 
too  much  frequented  by  the  unfortunate  Branwell, 
contains  a  replica  of  the  chair  in  which  he  was 


Charlotte  Bronte :    a    Centenary  Memorial 

wont  to  sit  on  these  occasions.  Immediately 
opposite  is  the  Bronte  Museum,  wherein  will  be 
found  many  interesting  memorials  of  the  family. 
With  the  exception  of  the  tower,  the  whole  of 
the  old  church  was  pulled  down  and  a  new  build- 
ing erected  between  1879  and  1881.  Within 
lie  the  remains  of  all  the  members  of  the  family 
except  Anne,  who  was  buried  at  Scarborough. 
A  Bronte  memorial  tablet  is  placed  on  a  wall 
in  the  old  tower,  and  in  the  south  aisle  of  the 
church  is  a  stained-glass  window  in  memory  of 
the  Brontes,  placed  there  by  an  American  citizen. 
The  Bronte  grave  lies  at  the  south  end  of  the 
communion-rail,  and  is  marked  by  a  brass  tablet 
bearing  the  names  of  Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte, 
Visitors  should  not  omit  to  inspect  the  registers 
containing  entries  relating  to  members  of  the 
family. 

The  Vicarage,  standing  immediately  behind  the 
church,  remains  unchanged,  except  that  an  addi- 
tional wing  has  been  built  since  the  time  it  was 
occupied  by  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte. 

After  inspecting  these  places  the  visitor  will 
now  be  free  to  wander  on  the  moor  lying  west 
of  the  village.  Proceeding  along  West  Lane  the 
moor  road  leading  past  the  cemetery  comes  into 
view,  and  if  this  be  followed  a  distance  of  2| 
miles  to  the  waterfall  he  will  get  a  typical 
example  of  West- Riding  moorland  scenery.  On 
the  left  are   the  Haworth  and  Stanbury  Moors, 

316 


E 


o 

< 

C 


....  ^  . 


\    V 


■  ) 


\\ 


A    Bronte  Itinerary 

and  to  the  right  is  the  Sladen  Valley,  across  which 
the  village  of  Stanbury  can  be  seen  perched  on 
the  hill-top.  This  is  the  "  Vale  of  Gimmerton  " 
described  in  Wuthering  Heights.  When  nearing 
the  waterfall  the  path  slopes  down  the  valley  side 
to  the  Sladen  Beck,  into  which  the  stream  runs 
from  the  fall.  Here  v/ill  be  seen  a  stone  foot- 
bridge, and  also  a  large  boulder  known  as 
Charlotte  Bronte's  chair. 

A  mile  and  a  half  west  from  this  point  rises 
Withen's  Height,  1,500  feet  above  the  sea,  on 
the  eastern  slope  of  which  stands  a  small  farm- 
house which  local  tradition  identifies  as  "Vs^uther- 
ing  Heights."  The  situation  may  be  that 
described  by  Emily,  but  the  house  itself  bears  no 
resemblance  to  that  of  the  story  ;  the  probability 
being  in  favour  of  a  composition  suggested  by 
High  Sunderland,  near  Halifax  and  Ponden 
House.  The  latter  is  situated  three  miles  from 
Haworth,  near  the  road  leading  from  that  place 
to  Colne.  It  is  a  seventeenth-century  structure 
built  by  the  Heatons  of  Ponden,  and  was  often 
visited  by  the  Bronte  sisters.  Still  following 
this  road,  which  now  begins  to  rise  rapidly  up 
to  the  moors,  we  shall  have  an  opportunity 
of  visiting  Wycoller  Hall,  6^  miles  from 
Haworth.  This  is  the  Ferndean  Manor  of  Jane 
Eyre.  It  is  situated  in  Wycoller  village,  the 
nearest  approach  to  which  is  by  a  rough  track 
branching   to   the    left    from  the   road    about    a 

317 


charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

quarter  of  a  mile  before  reaching  Top  of  Heather 
Inn.  The  building  is  now  in  ruins,  and  was  built 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  by  a 
member  of  the  Cunliffe  family. 

From  Keighley  the  visitor  can  proceed  to 
Stonegappe,  the  Gateshead  Hall  of  Jane  Eyre^ 
where  the  early  action  of  the  story  takes  place, 
and  where  Charlotte  acted  as  governess  in  1839. 
It  is  a  substantial  building  situated  about  two  miles 
west  of  Kildwick  station,  which  is  on  the  Midland 
main  line  five  miles  north-west  of  Keighley. 

The  village  of  Thornton,  four  miles  west  of 
Bradford,  is  now  included  within  the  boundary 
of  this  city.  The  house  in  which  the  Bronte 
children  were  born  is  situated  in  the  Market  Street, 
nearly  opposite  the  Mechanics'  Institute.  It  is 
now  used  as  a  house  and  shop,  but  during  the 
Rev.  Patrick  Bronte's  sojourn  it  served  as  the 
Vicarage.  There  is  a  tablet  on  the  wall  indicating 
its  connection  with  the  family.  The  Old  Church 
where  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte  officiated  is  now 
in  ruins;  it  lies  on  the  left  of  the  road  just  before 
entering  the  village,  which  may  be  reached  by 
tram-car  from  the  city. 

The  "Shirley"  Country 

The  locality  in  which  the  action  of  Shirley  took 
place  has  greatly  altered  since  Charlotte  Bronte's 
day.     It    is    known    as    the    "  Heavy    Woollen 

318 


"  6rilRLEY"     COUNTRY 


&c*ie.:     I  mile    to    j  Inch 


Teikce  p.  31I, 


A  Bronte  Itinerary 

District,"  for  it  is  now  the  centre  of  the  textile 
industry  devoted  to  the  production  of  cloth 
and  blankets.  In  the  early  part  of  last  century 
the  mills  were  sparsely  scattered  in  a  smiling 
landscape  :  to-day  the  area  is  teeming  with  large 
factories  and  populous  villages,  but  although 
the  landscape  has  suffered  from  this  industrial 
development,  it  still  retains  much  of  the  charm 
of  the  earlier  days. 

The  town  of  Heckmondwike,  seven  miles 
from  Bradford,  lies  about  the  centre  of  the 
district,  but  for  the  purpose  of  a  circular  tour 
it  will  be  best  to  alight  at  Drighlington  station 
on  the  Great  Northern  line,  from  whence  a  field 
path  leads  down  to  Oakwell  Hall,  which  is  the 
"  Fieldhead "  of  the  story,  the  distance  being 
half  a  mile.  It  is  a  good  example  of  the  West- 
Riding  type  of  manor-house,  and  was  built 
in  1583  by  one  Henry  Batt.  The  building  is 
minutely  described  in  Shirley.  Half  a  mile 
farther  is  the  village  of  Birstall  (Briarfield). 
Like  that  of  Haworth,  the  church  existing  in 
Charlotte  Bronte's  time  has  been  demolished 
with  the  exception  of  the  tower,  and  replaced 
by  a  new  structure.  The  Rev.  W.  Margetson 
Heald,  vicar  from  1801  to  1836,  was  the 
prototype  of  the  Rev.  Cyril  Hall.  Close  by 
stands  "  The  Rydings,"  where  Miss  Ellen  Nussey 
lived  when  Charlotte  first  knew  her,  and  where 
the  author  was  a  frequent  visitor  between   1832 

319 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a   Centenary  Memorial 

and  1837.  The  exterior  answers  to  the  descrip- 
tion of  Thornfield  Hall  in  Jane  Eyre,  hut  it  is 
fairly  certain  that  Norton  Conyers,  near  Ripon, 
served  as  a  picture  of  the  interior  of  Rochester's 
mansion.  From  Birstall  the  visitor  should 
proceed  to  Gomersal,  lying  half  a  mile  farther 
west,  where  Red  House  (Briarmains)  is  situated. 
This  was  the  residence  of  Joshua  Taylor,  a 
sturdy  and  enterprising  manufacturer,  who 
figures  in  the  story  as  Hiram  Yorke.  His  two 
daughters,  Mary  and  Martha  (Rose  and  Jessie 
Yorke),  were  Charlotte's  school  companions  at 
Roe  Head.  Close  by  Red  House  is  a  joiner's 
shop  which  was  formerly  a  dissenting  place  of 
worship,  and  it  was  from  this  building  that 
the  author  heard  the  weird  groanings  and 
chantings  described  in  the  ninth  chapter  of  the 
story. 

By  following  the  road  from  Gomersal  to 
Heckmondwike  for  a  distance  of  ij  miles 
Heald's  Hall  will  be  reached.  This  was  the 
residence  of  the  Rev.  Hammond  Roberson 
(Rev.  Matthewson  Helstone)  who  kept  a 
boarding-school  there  in  Charlotte  Bronte's 
time.  About  a  mile  to  the  west  of  this 
place  is  Liversedge  Church,  built  at  Mr. 
Roberson's  own  expense,  and  of  which  he  was 
vicar.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  beyond  this  stands 
the  house  where  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte  lodged 
when  appointed  to   the   living   of  Hartshead  in 

120 


i««l>.|>a. 


/ 


*  K 


A  Bronte  Itinerary 

1 8 1 1 ,  and  where  his  daughters  Maria  and 
Elizabeth  were  born.  Going  still  farther  west 
for  a  mile  in  the  direction  of  Hightown,  the 
road  takes  a  sharp  bend  to  the  south  towards 
Hartshead  Church,  which  is  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  from  Hightown  village.  The  structure  pos- 
sesses a  fine  Norman  porch,  and  other  remains 
of  this  period  are  to  be  found  in  the  chancel. 
This  is  the  Nunnely  Church  of  the  story. 
PVom  the  churchyard  can  be  seen  that  extensive 
prospect  as  described  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of 
the  book.  Roehead,  the  school  where  Charlotte 
attended  from  1831  to  1835,  is  reached  by 
passing  through  Hartshead  village  for  a  mile 
on  the  road  to  Mirfield.  Miss  Wooller,  then 
the  mistress,  figures  as  Mrs.  Prior  in  the  story. 

CowAN    Bridge    and    Kirkby   Lonsdale 

This  locality  is  associated  with  the  trying 
school  experiences  of  the  Bronte  children,  so 
graphically  described  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's  "  Life," 
and  which  are  reproduced  with  such  painful 
fidelity  in  the  early  chapters  of  Jane  Eyre. 

To  those  who  approach  the  district  by  the 
Midland  Railway,  Ingleton  will  be  found  a 
convenient  starting-point,  as  conveyances  can  be 
hired  for  a  circular  tour  to  Tunstall  Church, 
Kirkby  Lonsdale,  Casterton,  Cowan  Bridge  and 
back  again  to  Ingleton.     The  road  passes  through 

321  X 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

Burton,  2 J  miles  from  Ingleton.  Three  miles 
beyond,  Thurland  Castle  is  reached,  and  a  mile 
farther  stands  Tunstall  Church,  near  the  river 
Lune.  This  is  the  Brocklebridge  Church  of 
Jane  Eyre.  The  following  passage  from  the 
story  describes  the  experiences  of  the  pupils 
of  Lowood  School  at  this  place  :  "  We  had 
to  walk  two  miles  to  Brocklebridge  Church, 
where  our  patron  officiated.  We  set  out 
cold,  we  arrived  at  the  church  colder;  during 
morning  service  we  became  almost  para- 
lysed. Tt  was  too  far  to  return  for  dinner,  and 
an  allowance  of  cold  meat  and  bread,  in  the 
same  penurious  proportion  observed  in  our 
ordinary  meals,  was  served  round  between  the 
services.  At  the  close  of  the  afternoon  service 
we  returned  by  an  exposed  and  hilly  road,  where 
the  bitter  wintry  wind,  blowing  over  a  range 
of  snowy  summits  to  the  north,  almost  flayed 
the  skin  from  our  faces." 

The  room  where  the  children  had  their  mid- 
day meal  is  immediately  over  the  church  porch. 
From  Tunstall  the  road  now  runs  due  north  to 
Kirkby  Lonsdale,  a  distance  of  3^  miles.  This 
place,  the  Lowton  of  the  story,  is  beautifully 
situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Lune.  The 
church,  with  its  architectural  features  of  Norman 
date,  is  well  worth  a  visit.  The  view  up  the 
Lune  Valley  from  the  churchyard  was  considered 
by   Ruskin  to  be  one  of  the  finest   in  England. 

322 


A  Bronte  Itinerary 

From  here  the  visitor  will  proceed  to  Casterton, 
crossing  the  river  by  the  famous  Devil's  Bridge, 
and  passing  Casterton  Hall,  which  lies  on  the  left 
of  the  road  a  quarter  of  a  mile  before  reaching  the 
village.  This  was  the  residence  of  the  Rev.  Carus 
Wilson  (Rev.  Mr.  Brocklehurst),  who  took  an 
active  part  in  the  management  of  Cowan  Bridge 
Clergy  Daughters'  School  during  the  Bronte 
period.  The  school  was  removed  to  Casterton  in 
1833,  and  since  that  time  has  done  excellent  educa- 
tional work.  There  is  accommodation  for  112 
girls.  Leaving  Casterton  the  road  now  runs 
south,  intersecting  the  track  of  the  Roman  road  at 
Kirkby  Lonsdale  railway  station,  and  from  thence 
south-east  to  Cowan  Bridge,  the  Lowood  of 
Jane  Eyre.  The  Leek  Beck  runs  through  the 
village,  which  is  i\  miles  from  Casterton.  The 
old  school  was  close  to  the  bridge,  but  only  a 
part  of  the  original  premises  remains.  This 
consists  of  two  long,  bow-windowed  cottages, 
formerly  used  by  the  teachers,  and  where  the 
school  kitchen  was  situated.  The  schoolrooms 
and  dormitories  are  not  now  in  existence. 
It  was  opened  in  1824  for  the  purpose 
of  providing  an  inexpensive  education  for  the 
daughters  of  poor  clergymen,  who  paid  part  of 
the  cost,  the  remainder  being  provided  by  sub- 
scriptions. On  the  gable-end  facing  the  road  a 
tablet  is  fixed,  indicating  the  connection  of  the 
Brontes  with  the  institution. 

323 


Charlotte  Bronte  :    a  Centenary  Memorial 

The  tour  is  completed  on  returning  to 
Ingleton,  four  miles  from  Cowan  Bridge. 
Visitors  making  Kirkby  Lonsdale  a  centre  can 
go  round  by  Tunstal,  Cowan  Bridge,  and 
Caster  ton,   or  vice-versa. 


Hathersage 

It  was  not  until  1882  that  this  place  began 
to  be  associated  with  the  village  of  Morton  in 
Ja^e  EyrCy  and  even  then  there  was  no  direct 
evidence  in  support  of  the  conjecture.  The 
matter  was  settled,  however,  by  Mr.  Clement 
Shorter  in  his  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle^ 
published  in  1896.  It  is  therein  recorded  that 
Charlotte  spent  three  weeks  at  this  place  in 
the  summer  of  1845  with  her  friend  Miss 
Nussey,  whose  brother  became  vicar  of  Hather- 
sage in  1844,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Charlotte  had  this  district  in  mind  when  she 
described  the  village  of  Morton  and  the  sur- 
rounding moorlands.  Mr.  J.  J.  Stead's  article 
on  Hathersage  in  Part  IV  of  the  Bronte  Society's 
Transactions  should  be  consulted  by  those  who 
intend  to  visit  this  interesting  locality. 

The  village  is  on  the  Dore  and  Chinley 
branch  of  the  Midland  Railway,  and  may  be 
approached  from  Sheffield  (12  miles)  or  from 
Manchester  (30  miles).  It  is  beautifully  situated 
in    the  Derwent    Valley,  and    is   surrounded    by 

324 


A  Bronte  Itinerary 

moorland  very  similar  to  that  in  the  Haworth 
district.  The  visitor  should  see  the  church,  the 
burial-place  of  the  Eyre  family,  whose  name 
suggested  the  title  of  the  novel.  Here  Robin 
Hood's  Little  John  is  supposed  to  be  burled. 
Close  by  is  the  Vicarage,  mentioned  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage  :  "  In  crossing  a  field  I  saw  the 
church  spire  before  me  ;  I  hastened  towards  it. 
Near  the  church,  and  in  the  middle  of  a  garden, 
stood  a  well-built  though  small  house,  which  I 
had  no  doubt  was  the  Parsonage."  The  house 
has,  however,  been  enlarged  since  Charlotte 
Bronte's  time. 

The  home  of  the  Rivers  family.  Moor  House, 
has  been  identified  in  a  building  called  Moor 
Seats,  situated  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  the 
village,  and  lies  not  far  from  the  edge  of  the 
moor.  ^ 

In  the  romantic  description  of  Jane  Eyre's 
flight  from  Thornfield  Hall  she  leaves  the 
coach  on  the  road  leading  across  the  open  moors 
at  Whitcross.  This  would  be  on  the  high-road 
from  Sheffield  which  Charlotte  and  Miss  Nussey 
traversed  on  their  visit  to  Hathersage  in   1845. 

"  Mr.  Oliver's  grand  Hall  in  Morton  Vale  " 
is  easily  recognized  in  Brookfield  Manor,  an 
ancient  mansion  situated  in  a  fine  park  about 
a  mile  to  the  north  of  the  village. 

BUTLER  IVOOD, 
325 


INDEX 


^gnn  Grey,  publication  of,  2 1  5 

Arnold,  Matthew — 

Meeting  with  Charlotte  Bronte,  35 
Poem  on  "  Haworth  Churchyaril," 
6S 

•*  Bell,  Currer,"  Identity  revealed,  31, 

217 
*'  Bell,     Currer,    Ellis    and     Acton," 

poems  by,  31,  71 
Benson,    A.    C,  Charlotte    Bronte,  a 

personal  sketch,  57 
Birstall,  319,  320 
Blackstock,  W.  de  W.,  148 
Boulsworth,  315 
Bradford,  314 
Bradford,    Centenary    address    at,    by 

Mrs.    Humphry  Ward,   1 5 
"  Bretton,  Dr.  John,"  see  Smith,  George 
"Briarfield,"  of  Shirley,  319 
"  Briarmain's,"  of  Shirley,  320 
Brigg,  Sir   John,  President  of  Bronte 

Society,  ii8,  120,  144,  147 
Brigg,  J.J.,  147 

"  Brocklebridge,"  of  yane  £yre,  322 
"  Brocklehurst,  Rev.  Mr.,"  323 
Bronti:,  Anne,  67 

As  poet,  75 

Last  lines,  75 
Bronte,  Charlotte — 

As  romantic,  23,  49 

Birth,  IS,  57,  65 

Centenary  addresses,  15,  65 

Death,  57 


Bronti*,  Cliarlotte  [continued)^ 
In  Brussels,  60,  83 
In  London,  209 
In  Manchester,  66 
Irish  origin,  52 
Meeting  with  Arnold,  35 
Meeting  with  Thackeray,  237 
Novels,    comparison    with    Dickens 

anil  Thackeray,  59 
Personal  sketch,  57 
Place  in  nineteenth  century  fiction, 

15' 

School  life  at  Cowan  Bridge,  321 

School  life  at  Roehead,  19 

Some  thoughts  on,  15 

Word  on,  4 1 
Bronte,  Elizabeth,  15,  67,  321 
Bronte,  Emily,  in  Brussels,  60 

Poetic  gift,  20,  75 

Power  of  transmutation,  26 
Bronte,  Maria,  15,  67,  321 
Bronte,  Mrs.  Maria,  15 
Bronte,  Rev.  Patrick,  70 

Death,  67 

Eccentricity,  70 
Bronti-,  Patrick  Branwell,  67,  219 
Bronto  family  portraits,  i  30 
Bronte  Sisters — 

As  artists  and  prophets,  287 

Charlotte  and  f.mily,  a  comparison 
and  a  contrast,  175 

Celtic  origin,  22,  25,  29,  37 

Juvenile  writings  of,  18,  132,  146 

See  also  Bell 


327 


Index 


Bronte- Heger  letters  in  Timts,  95 
Bronte  bibliography,  135 

Birthplace,  318 

Itinerary,  313 

Museum,  121,  128,  315 

Novels,  foreign  translations,  136 

Persons  and  places  of,  141 

Society,  origin,  118,  123 

Society  story  of,  1 1 3 
Brookfield  Manor,  325 
Brussels,  Charlotte  Bronte  in,  83 

Heger  Pensionnaf,  71,85 
Burton,  322 


Casterton,  32! 

Centenary   address   at    Haworth,    by 
Bishop  Welldon,    65 
Acidress     at     Bradford,    by      Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward,   15 
Chadwick,  Mrs.  Ellis  H.,  84,  145 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  136 

On  Charlotte  Bronte  as  a  romantic, 

49 
Clergy     Daughters'    School,     Cowan 

Bridge,  323 
Cockshott,  Miss,  148 
Colne,  314 
"Cottage    Poems,"    of    Rev.    Patrick 

Bronte,  70 
Cory,  W.  J.,  visit  to  Haworth,  168 

Impressions  of  yane  Eyre,  170 
Cowan  Bridge,  17,  19,  321 
Crewe,    Marquis    of,    see    Houghton, 

Lord 
Curates  in  Shirley,  27 

Day,  C,  148 

Dimnet,  E.,  137 


«♦  Emma,"  see  "  Last  Sketch ' 
^yre  family,  325 


"  Fern<lean    Manor,"    of    ^ane   Eyre, 

317 
Field,  W.  T.,  122,  130,  147 
"Fieldhead,"  of  Shirley,  319 
Fitzgerald,  Edward,  22 
Fotheringham,  J.,  145 

Galloway,  F.  C,  147 

Garnett,  Richard,  Place  of  Charlotte 

Bronte    in    Nineteenth    Century 

Fiction,  151 
Ciskell,  Margaret  Emily   ("  Meta  "), 

65 

Gaskell,  Mrs.,  17,  j8,  66,  71 
"Gateshead  Hall,"  of  Jane  Eyre,  318 
Gomersal,  320 
Gosse,  Edmund,  A  Word  on  Charlotte 

Bronte,  41 
Greenwood,  J.  F.,  141,  147 

Haldane,  Lord,  145 

Halifax,  314 

«' Hall,  Rev.  Cyril,"  319 

Hartshead,  320 

Hathersage  ("  Morton  "  of  Jane  Eyre), 

140,  143'  324 
Haworth,  315 

Centenary    adilress    at,    by    Bishop 
Welldon,  65 

Parsonage,  69,  316 
"  Haworth      Churchyard,"     Arnold's 

poem    on,   68 
Heald,  Rev.W.  M.,  319 
Heald's  Hall,  320 
Hebden  Bridge,  314 
Heckmondwikc,  319 
Heger  Family,  28,  83-96 

Pemionnat,  92  -96 
Heger-Bronte  letters  in  Times,  95 
"  Helstone,  Rev.  M.,"  320 
High  Sunderland,  317 
Hightown,  321 


328 


Index 


Moagkton   Lord   (Marqais  of  Crewe), 
Preairfent  of  Bronte  Society,  144 

togleton,  j2( 

Itinerary  of  Bronte  noveU,  313 

yane  Eyrt  begun,  7Z 
Publication  of,  58,  2i6 
Second   edition  dedicated  to  Thac- 
keray, 76 
Juvenile  writing*  of  the  Bronte  «i»ter«, 
18,132,  146 

Keighlcy,  514,  318 
Key  worth,  Rev.  T.,  140 
Kildwick,  318 
Kirkby  Lonsdale,  321 

•* La»t  Sketch "  ("Emma"),  in  Ctrn^ 

hill  Magazine^  76 
Lee,  P.  F.,  141 
Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  Charlotte  Bronte  in 

London,  209 
Lewes,  George  Henry,  23,  185 
Liversedge  church,  320 
London,  Charlotte  Bronte  in,  209 
'*  Lowood  School,"  of  Jane  Eyre,  322 
"  Lowton,"  of  Jane  Eyre,  322 
Luddite  agitation,  78 

Maedonald,  Fredcricka,  84 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  137 

Manchester,  visit  of  Charlotte  Bronte 

to,  66 
"  Meta,"  iee  Gaskell,  M.  E. 
*'  Mistress  of  tlic  Disagreeable,"  22 
**  Moor  House,"  of  Jane  Eyre,  325 
Moor  seats,  325 
Moors,  Spirit  of,  251 
Morton,  tee  Hathersage 
Mossman,  F.  A.  T,,  147,  14$ 


Newboult,  A.,  147 


Ncwbf,  T.  C,  H7 
Nichollt,  Rev.  A.  B.,  131 
Nicoll,  Sir  W.  R.,  145 
Norton  Conyeri,  320 
•'  Nunnely,"  of  Shirley,  321 
Nusiejr,   Elten,    33,    nS,   132,   14^, 
3»9.  324 

Oakwelt  Halt,  319 

Peel,  F.,  122 

Pendle  Hill,  315 

Place-names    of    Bronte    novels,    see 

Itinerary,  313-325 
"  Poems  by  Currer,  Ellis,  and  Actoit 

Bell,"  31,  71. 
Ponden  House,  317 
Priestley,  Sir  William,  142 
"  Prior,  Mrs.,"  321 
Prafesur,  Rejection  ef,  72,  215 

Red  House,  320 

Reid,  Sir  T.  Wemyss,  144 

Richmond,  George,  Portrait  of  dxar" 

lotte  Bronte,  169 
Ritchie,  Lady,  240 
"Rivers"  Family,  325 
Roberson,  Rev.  H.,  320 
Robertshaw,  W.,  147 
Roehead  School,  18,  32! 
Romantic,  Charlotte  Bronte  as,  23,  49 
Rombald's  Moor,  315 
"Rydings"  of  Shirley,  319 

Saintsbury,  G.,  14$ 
Scruton,  W.,  122,  142 
Seccombe,  T,,  145 
Selincourt,  E.  de,  (4$ 
Shirley,  303-4 

Country,  141,  31S 

Curates  of,  27 

Luddite  agitation,  78 


329 


Index 


Shorter,  Clement  K.,  S4,  119 

Skipton,  314 

Smith,  George,  marriage  of,  244 
Death  of,  245 

Meets  Charlotte  Bronte,  214 
Prototype  of  ♦'Dr.  John  Bretton," 
32,  225-35 

Smith,  Mrs.  George,  33 

Smith,  Reginald,  34 

Snowden,  J.  K.,    Brontes    at    artist* 
and  prophets,  287 

Spielmann,  M.  H.,  Charlotte  Bronte 
in  Brussels,  83 

Stanbury,  316 

Stead,  J.  J.,  122,  140,  147,  148 

Stonegappe,  318 

Stuart,  J.  A.  E.,  122 

Siitcliffe,  Halliwell,  Spirit  of  the  moors, 

Taylor,  Joshua,  320 

Taylor,  Mary,  18,  19,  21 

Ttnar.t  of  Wildjtll  Hall  published,  217 

Thackeray,   W.    M.,   meetings    with 

Charlotte  Bronte,  237-241 
Dedication  of  Jant  Eyrt  to,  76 
•'  Thornfield  Hall "  of  Jant  Eyrt,  43, 

320,  325 
Thornton,  65,  314,  318 
Thurland  Castle,  322 
Timesy  Bronte-Hcger  letters  in,  95 
Tunstall,  321 
Turner,  J.  Horsfall,  118,  122,  147 

Unwiw,  S.  P.,  148 


"Vale  of  Cimmerton"of  fVutktring 
Htighn, -ii-; 

Vaughan,  C.  E.,  Charlotte  and  Emily 
Bronte  ;  a  comparison  and  a  con- 
trast, 175 

Villettt,  23,  24,  84,  86,  93 
Publication  of,  242 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  A  Foreword,  t 
Centenary  address  at  Bradford,  15 
President  of  Bronte  Society,  144 

Watkinson,  J.,  148 

Welldon,  Bishop,  Centenary  address 
at  Haworth,  65 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  as  Bronte  hero, 
16,  19,  77 

Whitcross,  325 

Williams,  Smith,  21,  215 

Wilson,  Rev.  Carus,  323 

Wise,  J.  T.,  134 

Withen's  Height,  317 

Wood,    Butler,   Ji8,   120,  [122,    135, 
«47.  148 
Bronte  itinerary,  313 

Wooler,  Miss,  321 

Worth  Valley,  314 

Wroot,  H.  E,  84 

Story  of  the  Bronte  Society,  1 1 3 

ffuthtrifig  Htightt,  place-name,  3 1 7 
Publication  of,  215 

Wycoller,  280,  317 

Yates,  W.  W.,  ij8,  120,   122,  124, 

148 
**  Yorkc,  Hiram,"  320 


53« 


THE    BRONTE    SOCIETY 

FOUNDED  1S93    INCORPORATED  1902 

President : 
Mrs.   Humphry  Ward 

The  objects  of  the  Society  are  : — the  publication 
of  Transactions  containing  biographical,  literary, 
and  topographical  contributions  on  the  life  and 
works  of  the  members  of  the  Bronte  family  ;  and 
the  preservation  of  literary,  artistic,  and  personal 
memorials  of  the  Brontes  in  the  museum  at 
Haworth. 

The  annual  subscription,  3s.  6d.,  is  due  In 
advance  on  the  i  st  ot  January  in  each  year.  Life 
membership,  two  guineas.  Members  receive  a 
copy  of  the  yearly  part  of  the  Transactions,  and 
are  entitled  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the 
Society,  together  with  free  admission  to  the 
Bronte  Museum. 

Those  who  desire  to  join  the  Society  are  re- 
quested to  communicate  with  the  Hon.  Secretary, 
Mr.  W.  T.  Field,  Rockmount,  Baildon,  near 
Bradford,  from  whom  any  further  information 
may  be  obtained. 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  by 

TJMWIN  BROTHEKS,  UUITEO 

WOKINQ  AND  LONOOM 


c/^V^ 


.UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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